Mayor Moves to Aid Quake-Hit Tenants

Mayor Tom Bradley on Thursday issued a set of emergency housing regulations and asked the police to back them up in order to head off opportunistic landlords who might take advantage of displaced earthquake victims.

The mayor also ordered the city Housing Authority to make available 200 units of shelter for those left homeless after last week’s earthquake, which killed three people and caused nearly $140 million in damage in the region. He instructed the city Department of Building and Safety to beef up the staff that is surveying the earthquake damage.

The emergency order specifies that landlords cannot prohibit tenants from re-occupying their apartments, and suspends until Nov. 15 the city’s overcrowding ordinance so landlords cannot evict those who shelter displaced relatives and friends. Tenant rights groups have charged that some landlords are taking advantage of the earthquake emergency, falsely claiming their buildings had been ordered vacated.

Under Bradley’s order, tenants who have been illegally locked out of their apartments can call police to intervene with landlords. Violations will be misdemeanors.

“We must ensure that the fear of these residents is not exploited by landlords who, because of confusion or opportunism, are evicting tenants,” Bradley said.

Barbara Zeidman, director of the city’s Rent Stabilization Division, said she expects Bradley’s action “to stop some of the craziness going on right now.”

Under a newly designated Emergency Relocation Committee, inspection teams coordinated by the Los Angeles Red Cross and Community Development Department will coordinate relocation efforts.

So far, 1,450 buildings have been inspected. Fifty-three of them, containing 697 apartments housing 2,800 people, have been ordered vacated, officials said.

The Red Cross reported that the number of people needing shelter peaked Tuesday at 2,235. Wednesday night’s count was 1,900.

But spokesman Ralph Wright warned: “This doesn’t mean those people no longer need housing. It means they got tired of camping out under a tent on a football field. They’ve moved in with their friends and mothers-in-law. The long-term housing problem in this area has not gone away by any means.”

Bradley’s suspension of the overcrowding ordinance is key, Dino Hirsch, a tenant activist who aids Spanish-speaking tenants, said, because most of the displaced renters have large families. Relatives can now take them in, he said.

“Otherwise people could be scared that their landlord will evict them,” Hirsch said.

Emergency officials had also complained that it was hard to determine how many of those who have sought shelter or who are living outdoors were truly displaced or were just too frightened to go back home.

The Emergency Relocation Committee will address this with teams led by the Red Cross, with personnel from various city departments such as Building and Safety, Community Development and Housing Authority, and the Legal Aid Foundation.

Committee Meeting

Today, City Councilman Richard Alatorre said he will hold an emergency joint committee hearing on the city’s role in helping those made homeless by the earthquake.

Meanwhile, federal emergency workers readied five offices, which will open Sunday, to help victims file for government aid for losses sustained in the quake, which forced an estimated 12,000 people from their homes across the region.

The Red Cross will be among a number of government agencies that will have counselors available at the “one-stop-shopping” centers. There will be three centers in Los Angeles and others in Alhambra, Whittier, Rosemead and La Habra.

The financially strapped Red Cross received a $250,000 matching grant from the United Way on Thursday to help pay for its area relief efforts, which included housing, food and medical aid for more than 10,000 people. Numerous other local foundations, businesses and individuals have provided another $165,000 in aid.

United Way President Leo Cornelius said the charity’s executive board will meet next week to assess what can be done to aid other agencies, some of which have been providing aid for victims, and others of which have themselves been upended by the quake.

Rep. David Dreier (R-La Verne) criticized the federal government for not moving fast enough to provide financial relief for the victims, saying “there is no reason why the people of Whittier should have to wait ten days to start rebuilding their homes and their lives.”

Federal Emergency Management Agency officials said Thursday that the disaster designation process was speedy, noting that before such determinations are made, field engineers had to make damage assessments. “Once that was determined, it took less than a day for our evaluations, and another day and a half for Washington to study the information and declare the emergency,” said Emergency Management’s Regional Director Robert L. Vickers.

In hard-hit Whittier Thursday, demolition contractors submitted bids for destroying an estimated 12 buildings in the Uptown business district. City manager Thomas G. Mauk said he would like demolition to begin within 24 hours and believes that the area can be reopened within the week.

Staff writer Mary Lou Fulton also contributed to this story.