Seniors Explore Ways to End "Housing Crisis"

By Jorge Casuso

Citing a "severe housing crisis" that is taking a particularly hard toll on Santa Monica's elderly, the Commission on Older Americans unanimously approved a resolution Wednesday urging the city to spend at least $35 million to create affordable housing.

The money would come from bonding the revenues from the city's earthquake redevelopment district, which city officials predict could generate between $65 million and $90 million.

The commission also called for the city's Housing Crisis Committee to reconvene in search of solutions.

"The City of Santa Monica is in the grip of a severe housing crisis," said Commissioner Victor Ludwig, reading the resolution he spearheaded, "and rents have far outstripped wages and average retirement benefits."

The resolution was spurred by dire news from Santa Monica housing officials, who have chronicled what they say is a rapid erosion of affordable housing in the wake of a state law that allows landlords of vacated rent-controlled units to charge what the market will bear.

Under the "vacancy decontrol" law -- which went into full effect Jan. 1 -- the city is expected to lose 2,300 affordable rent-controlled units this year, housing officials predict. At the current rate, one third of all rent-controlled units would fetch market rates within five years. In addition, landlords have cancelled 101 federally subsidized Section 8 contracts that once made renting to low income tenants, many of them seniors, a more lucrative alternative than rent control.

"Santa Monica's housing stock is being priced out of the affordability range," said Rent Control Board administrator Mary Ann Yurkonis. "I wish I had solutions. The only real solution is the production of more affordable housing."

"The housing crisis is still very much with us," said Sally Ann Malloy, directing attorney for the Legal Aid Foundation of Los Angeles. "There's an amazing city surplus. We think it's really time to look at this with an open mind."

Malloy cited four "very disturbing" cases she said exemplify the precarious predicament of low-income seniors in the midst of the city's housing crisis.

One was the story of an elderly woman evicted when she took in her homeless son, who showed up on her doorstep. The son wasn't on the lease. She was able to keep her unit because the landlord didn't show up in court, Malloy said.

Another was the case of an 80-year old disabled woman evicted to make way for the landlord's father. The father already lived in one of his son's units but was being used to jack up the rent of the cheapest unit owned by his son, Malloy said. The case was settled, but the tenant was unhappy with her new unit and moved out.

Malloy said solutions to the crisis should involve non-profit as well as for-profit housing providers, the business community, landlords and landlord groups.

Efforts to restructure how federally subsidized Section 8 housing is funded also should be looked at, housing officials said. Peter Mezza, the housing coordinator for the city's housing division said Section 8 was "treading water and not doing very well."

The majority of the 101 units removed from Section 8 were occupied by either seniors, the disabled or disabled seniors.

"The basic reason for landlords to terminate the contract is a financial reason," Mezza said. But he cautioned against blaming landlords. "We have a lot of really good landlords, and I understand their perspective," he said. "It's a business, and we want to make it work for them as well as for the tenants."

To make Section 8 a viable option for landlords in the current housing market, Santa Monica's housing department has been lobbying the Department of Housing and Urban Development to change the formula used to calculate subsidies.

The current formula bases Sanat Monica's housing costs on those of Los Angeles and Long Beach, where rental prices are much lower. To correct the discrepancy, the city has been trying to get the federal agency to raise the rent standard to match actual market rate costs in Santa Monica under the new state law.

"All we're trying to do is reflect the market," Mezza said after the meeting. "We have to reflect the market to survive."

Raising the rent standard would result in the city holding on to the $1 million a year it returns to the federal government under the lower standards used for rent-controlled units, which no longer applies.

"We're not asking the feds for more money," Mezza told the commission. "We're asking them to let us use more of our money."

But the pleas have not been heeded. The main obstacle, Mezza said, has been the federal government's inability to grasp Santa Monica's problem. "There's a disconnect between what's happening here and the perception in Washington. I've stopped waiting for the phone to ring."

The federal government, Mezza said, is concerned that making an exception for Santa Monica could open the floodgates for other cities to make similar requests, a fear he believes is unfounded.

Legal Aid's Malloy suggested offering landlords incentives to keep Section 8 tenants. They could include rebates or discounts for city services such as water and garbage collection.

Whatever the future of Section 8, housing officials agree that it will take much more to tackle a crisis they say is hurting the city's most vulnerable citizens - Santa Monica's 14,000 seniors.

"We're seeing more and more frail elderly living on $640 a month," said Elizabeth Wilson, WISE Senior Services' program manager for care management. "They can't go tramping out looking for an apartment. They're mostly living alone, isolated. This is a very vulnerable population.

"If we wait for the feds to help them, they'll be dead and gone," Wilson said. "We have to develop our own housing stock in the city of Santa Monica."

Councilman Richard Bloom, who serves as the liaison to the Commission on Older Americans, said the council would take up the issue in the coming months.