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REMARKS FROM THE 710-CORRIDOR RENTAL HOUSING TENANT PUBLIC FORUM
Saturday, July 27, 2002 • 12 Noon - 2pm
Statements by:
Suzanne Reed, Chief-of-Staff to Assemblymember Carol Liu
Lyn Miller, Caltrans Tenant
Meeting Report ...
Suzanne Reed's Statement on behalf of Assemblymember Carol Liu
My name is Suzanne Reed. I am Chief-of-Staff to Assemblymember Carol Liu who has asked me to appear today on her behalf. She regrets she cannot be here due to a prior commitment.
Assemblymember Liu has been involved in the issue of the 710 Corridor tenants rent increases since the day she took office to represent the 44th Assembly District, which includes the cities of Pasadena and South Pasadena. She has articulated her involvement and concerns over these issues in a recent letter to Caltrans Director Morales dated July 12, 2002, with which I believe you are all familiar. Her concerns center on the fairness of Caltrans invoking substantial rent increases on tenants who have suffered through years of mismanagement and poor maintenance by Caltrans of the 710 corridor rental properties. She is concerned with Caltrans’ continuous failure to implement consistent management practices and procedures.
I am aware from the press that Caltrans is attempting to paint the710-corridor tenants as freeloaders. In my experience, I have not found that to be the case. I have visited their homes and seen the evidence of rat infestation, mold and incompetent repairs. I have documented my most recent visits in photos on display here today. I know many of the renters have, over the years, spent thousands of dollars of their own money to maintain their homes in habitable condition when Caltrans has failed to do so.
Caltrans needs to understand -- because you have might, does not make you right. Whenever we ask the tenants for documentation of their complaints, we are provided with an abundance of written correspondence between them and Caltrans as well as physical evidence. When we ask Caltrans for documentation of its position, we receive platitudes and assertions with no documentation provided.
A case in point is our request to Caltrans for documentation and statutory support for their policy of charging fair market value rents. Thus far we have received a reference to Articles of the State Constitution that don’t mention fair market values and a reference to the Federal Code of Regulations requiring fair market values for assets procured with federal money. When we asked Caltrans to explain how the Articles of the Constitution applied to fair market value, they ignored our request for an explanation. When we asked for evidence that federal funds were spent to procure the Caltrans houses, they were unable to provide it. Furthermore, they are unable to reconcile why renters must pay fair market rates but movie companies can use Caltrans properties for free. Nor can they explain how Caltrans is maximizing the public return on investment when homes that are ready for occupancy at current market values, remain vacant and un-rented.
Caltrans professes that it must meet the standard of the private sector by earning a fair return for a dollar spent. We hold Caltrans to a higher standard of serving and being accountable to the public. We, like Caltrans, are public servants and we take seriously our responsibility to serve the public.
A series of reports by the California Bureau of Audits documents Caltrans failure to adequately manage properties.
The Caltrans representatives here today assert that the tide has changed, that they have initiated new management practices that, and I quote Larry Stevens, the new Property Services Manager for the Southern Right of Way Region, “will provide greater customer sensitivity, increased responsiveness and improved quality of service, while at the same time, doing it efficiently and with effective cost management controls that will add value for the taxpayers as a whole.”
Mr. Stevens, you must understand, that while you are two months into your job, and possibly not responsible for past transgressions, the tenants with whom you are dealing have been living the Caltrans experience for 10, 20 and 30 years. Caltrans has lost their confidence, violated the public trust, and lost its credibility. How was Caltrans responsibility to the taxpayer fulfilled when it ran through 22 million dollars to rehabilitate 80 historical homes, but only completed 40?
On behalf of Assemblymember Carol Liu, I can say that we have no confidence in Caltrans’ ability to ever effectively manage these properties. We must all acknowledge that the completion of the 710 Freeway will not occur for many years, if ever. A consistent, responsible and effective system must be put in place to manage these properties for the long term. Our office has concluded that implementation of such a process lies outside Caltrans’ mission and expertise.
Not only does Assemblymember Carol Liu concur with the recommendations of the Pasadena, South Pasadena, and El Sereno tenants, and with the additions to those recommendations proposed by Senator Jack Scott, but also, we believe it is time to devise a new management system for the Caltrans properties. The details of such a system should be worked out by a taskforce composed of representatives of the cities and communities along the corridor, the tenants, affordable housing advocates, Caltrans, and the Legislature. In the interim, the prior rent increases should be revoked and a 3%/year rent increase instituted in their place.
We hope Caltrans will seriously consider the information and proposals it has heard today. Only by pursuing equitable resolution of the issues raised can Caltrans begin to regain the public trust.
Lyn Miller's Statement
My name is Lyn Miller and I represent the many faces of the tenants of the 710 Corridor: Senior citizens on fixed incomes, young couples and single moms and dads trying to raise families, blue collar and white collar workers, tenants who have lived as a neighborhood for 10, 20 and 30 years. We include Latinos, Asians, Afro-Americans, whites, and everything in between. This very diverse neighborhood has a commonality; and now a rallying point; a slumlord named Caltrans. This slumlord is forcing us to move out of our homes because of unjust and unfair rent increases. We have many questions we would like you, the representatives of Caltrans, to answer for us today:
- How can you force rent increases when your comps have proven to be fraudulent; often not rentals and sometimes do not even exist, and then take away our rights of appeal to expose this dirty little secret?
- How can you force rent increases when tenants have toxic mold in their houses?
- How can you force rent increases when tenants have been forced to pay for their own repairs to keep their rented houses livable?
- How can you force rent increases when tenants have rats crawling over their children’s beds and chewing up their kitchen wiring?
- How can you force rent increases when tenants have legal documents that say they won’t have increases until their historic homes are rehabbed as mandated by the Record of Decision?
- How can you force rent increases on tenants in rehabbed houses when the California State Auditor stated in a report in December, 2000 that you “relied on an undocumented process to ensure work performed complied with applicable codes, and thus has limited assurance that all relevant code requirements were considered and applied properly”. In other words, you can’t prove that the $20 million spent on 39 homes, only half of the houses required by the ROD to be rehabbed, are even code compliant.
- How can you force rent increases when there are over 40 houses in Pasadena alone that are suitable for rental but remain vacant?
- How can you force rent increases on longstanding tenants, when you allow film production crews to use the empty Caltrans houses for free?
- How can you force rent increases when our neighborhoods are unsafe because we are plagued by break-ins and criminal activity invited by the empty Caltrans houses? As of March 2002, there have been 296 Caltrans Property Police reports over a 39-month period – that is 7.4 reports a month in Pasadena alone.
- How can you force rent increases of up to 23% per year when the rent stabilization rate for LA City is 3%/annually?
- How can you force rent increases when you can’t even prove where you are mandated by state law that you are required to charge fair market value?
- Why aren’t your bosses -- the ones who imposed this forced rent increase -- here to defend their decisions and tell us why they are forcing us out of our homes?
- Could you afford a 23%per year rent or mortgage increase?
Caltrans is the worst kind of slumlord. Caltrans is a government agency, paid for by us, taxpayers, who should be held up to even a higher standard than the private sector, which I might add, has not proven itself to be a guardian of the public trust. You are supposed to serve us, not destroy us.
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