Thread: Affordable rent comes at a high price

http://www.oregonlive.com/oregonian/sto ... xml&coll=7

As housing costs soar elsewhere, families pour into Gresham's low-end units,

Sunday, August 05, 2007
ROBIN FRANZEN

The Oregonian

Fast-rising rents in Portland, apartments converting to condominiums and a greater availability of rentals in Gresham -- most built from the 1970s through the '90s -- are among the forces driving low-income renters eastward, housing advocates and real estate agents agree.

"There is a significant migration from inner southeast and inner northeast and north (Portland) to the Gresham area," said David Keys, vice president at Norris & Stevens Inc. He said much of the movement is to Rockwood, one of Gresham's westernmost neighborhoods bordering Portland. That's where Gresham officials enacted a rental-construction ban in 1998, only to overturn it four years later under threat of a lawsuit.

This year, the average monthly cost of an older rental in the Gresham-Outer Eastside area is $658, compared with $700 for Central-Westside Portland, according to a recent Norris & Stevens survey. For units built after 1994, the difference is larger: $723 for greater Gresham versus $981 for greater Portland.

But so-called bargains usually mean renters can expect less quality, according to Gerard Mildner, director of the Center for Real Estate at Portland State University. "If you can only afford $300 to $400, you are going to get one worth $300 to $400." Immigrants, he said, "may be more willing to tolerate difficult conditions."

Gresham officials say they can't do much about those conditions, even as they watch the city's poverty rate surge by almost half, to 18.5 percent in five years, and hundreds of single-family rentals, duplexes and apartments fall into disrepair. The city, they point out, is shackled by one of the lowest property tax rates in the state, a scarcity of inspectors and the lack of an interior housing code.

"We have no building maintenance powers whatsoever, whether interior or exterior," said Gresham Fire Marshal Gus Lian, who has crunched across bug-strewn floors and learned to use persuasion alone to force repairs. "I can make recommendations, but I can't make them fix anything."

This fall, the City Council is expected to discuss possible solutions, including a rental inspection program that could cost as much as $1.2 million a year, or $80 a unit, according to staff estimates. It could provide a way to enter and inspect rentals to make sure plumbing, wiring and appliances are in working order. Landlords who fail to make timely repairs could be fined.

But the debate promises to be fierce. Gresham landlords already pay an annual $25 licensing fee for every unit they own to support police, planning and parks. That money could be diverted, or higher fees and fines could be assessed to pay for a rental-inspection program.

"I'm concerned housing codes are clunky solutions that are very expensive and have limited results," said J. Norton Cabell, legislative director for the Oregon Rental Housing Association.

Housing advocates, such as Ian Slingerland, executive director of the Community Alliance of Tenants in Portland, argue that systematic inspections that don't require tenants to complain -- and risk eviction -- are overdue, especially since problems fixable under Portland's interior housing code tend to be unsolvable in unregulated Gresham.

"There's been a shift of poverty," Slingerland said, "and as more people with fewer resources move to Gresham, there are fewer market forces pushing landlords to do anything about substandard housing."

The key, in Slingerland's view, is "having a system that isn't complaint-driven, so vulnerable renters aren't open to retaliation." That's what Los Angeles' award-winning -- and costly -- program has accomplished, subjecting duplexes, triplexes and apartments to checks every five years.

Sharon Pindell wishes help had come years ago. In early 2006, Pindell began taking sponge baths and boiling hot water for dish washing at her duplex at Northeast 169th Avenue and Glisan Street. The hot-water heater didn't work half the time, she said, and it took nearly a year of complaints to get her landlord, Home Port Inc., to replace it.

Other tenants and former tenants at the complex, tucked away on a debris-strewn lot, report similar problems, including water leaks, mold and a nonworking lock on a sliding door. In one case, a sewer backed up into a closet and the renter said she was told to solve it herself by dumping baking soda down the drain.

"I know the place is old," Pindell said. "But they are letting it go to hell."

Home Port President John Mahaffy declined to talk about specific conditions at the property. Mahaffy is also president of Georgetown Realty and former head of the Mount Hood chapter of the international homebuilding charity Habitat for Humanity.

In a written statement, Mahaffy said, "Our goal . . . is to provide as affordable of housing as possible." He said the company hasn't raised rent for existing tenants since purchasing the property in late 2005, is "very flexible" in collecting rent and that at one point a "misunderstanding" existed as to who is responsible for cleanup and maintenance.

Three perspectives

Before he quit City Hall on June 29, Bob Bethmann knew where many of the least-habitable places were. But after seven years as a Gresham code enforcement officer, he decided to quit, in part, because he couldn't accept the city's inability to help renters living with leaking pipes, broken toilets, exposed wiring and mold.

Occasionally, while working his turf in Rockwood, Bethmann would catch through a doorway a glimpse of filth and decay inside an apartment. He most vividly remembers water leaking through an electric light fixture. "No child should have to live that way," he said.

If a tenant complained loudly enough, Bethmann could cite a landlord for exterior violations, but interiors were off limits. Some landlords were frustrated themselves, he said, failing to keep up with repairs because of the low rents. Others simply didn't care, Bethmann said, or didn't view conditions the same way as an inspector.

"You've got absentee landlords," he said, "many of them from Third World countries where standards are different."

A renter at Riviera Garden in Rockwood, who asked to not be identified because she fears eviction, worries about her children. Shortly after moving into the apartment, she said she had to rip out foul-smelling carpet because the complex manager failed to do so.

"My daughter came home and laid on it and came up with this yellow stain on her shirt. It smelled like urine," she said.

That was more than a year ago, but the woman says conditions at the 80-unit building are still "horrible" -- and city, housing and real estate officials take a similarly dim view. She points inside her elementary-school-age son's bedroom. Just inches from the head of his bed, mold creates a Jackson Pollock splatter-effect on his wall. In her daughter's room, a hole in the corner of the wall leaked water all winter.

The family -- an adult couple with four children -- ended up at Riviera Garden because they had bad credit after moving out of a shelter. "This place took us without a credit check," she said.

John Anca, who owns Riviera Garden apartments, but doesn't live there, looks at the same place and sees progress.

Since purchasing the complex four years ago, he said, he's refinished hardwood floors and replaced worn vinyl in about a third of the units. Old carpet has been removed in about 60. His manager said they turn away 10 to 15 prospective renters a week because of reputed ties to gangs.

"Sometimes we need to replace a hot-water tank, or one or two refrigerators a month, but that's not bad for 80 units," Anca said. "I don't think we have a problem now."

Anca has reached a tentative agreement to sell the 1965 complex to a California-based investment trust in August or September. Complex manager Chuck Pearman said the price is expected to be as much as $4 million, roughly $1 million more than Anca paid in 2003, according to county tax records.

Solutions not easy, quick

Two years ago, a rental-housing inspection program was proposed by Karen Barton, Gresham's former economic development manager. But the city attorney resisted the idea, fearing lawsuits from landlords, Barton says. Citizens on an advisory group also balked.

"At least two members are rental property owners and do not favor this program (which I think is ridiculous if they supposedly run 'clean' properties)," Barton wrote in a 2005 e-mail explaining the roadblock to her successor.

Ward Walker, one of the committee members, said his opposition is simple, and has nothing to do with conditions at any rentals he's ever owned. "I'm not one that wants to create more bureaucracy that poor people are going to have to pay for," he said, pointing out that landlords would pass the cost of inspections on to their tenants.

Some people were concerned that more than $350,000 in yearly rental-licensing revenue might have to be diverted from the city's general fund to pay for inspections. And housing experts warned that forcing landlords to make repairs could drive up rents in Gresham, leaving needy people with fewer options. The concept appeared orphaned until being assigned to another manager.

But with Bemis in office, the plan may be gaining momentum.

"Gresham has a new mayor much more interested in the plight of renters," said Greig Warner, a Multnomah County environmental health specialist.

Last year, Bemis was shaken after touring some of the city's shabbier rentals. Now he's eager to come up with an interior housing code that neither penalizes responsible landlords nor lets violators off the hook.

"It was awful," Bemis recalled. "One room had a hole in the ceiling 3 feet wide." If nothing is done, the mayor warned, conditions in some parts of Gresham will get worse. "Particular areas," he said, "are at high risk of becoming slums."

News researcher Margie Gultry contributed to this report. Robin Franzen: 503-294-5943; robinfranzen@news.oregonian.com Faith Cathcart: 503 753-4420; faithcathcart@news.oregonian.com

This is where I live and this is very similar to our situation. Now mind you, what the pictures in the original Sunday Paper article showed were pretty bad, I have not experienced the likes of, and would not tolerate.

However, again, I am also convinced that much of what is happening in my town, is dues to a huge influx of illegal aliens who have flooded the rental market, and also with the lax rental ordinances and lack of limitations on builders, you have a huge market of rentals, attractive to Americans who are limited in income, illegal aliens looking for the cheapest housing possible, and the biggest problem, landlords looking for who they see as vulnerable renters with little financial options, knowing many will have no choice but to keep renting in sub-standard conditions.

I wish the online article would show the pictues, they were pretty bad and many of the apartments in my complex do look like what the paper showed. Milder climbing the walls, rotten floors, carpet with huge holes, non-working appliances, outside stairways with broken cement steps. I could go on. The new landlord is working his way up the list. He said he is sort of limited right now financially, but is working on the most dangerous problems, down to those he feels can wait (such as the holes in the carpet, a minor hazard compared to outlets that spark!)

With illegal aliens, it will only go from bad to worse.

One of the main neighborhoods here in Gresham already has. They have a specific task force within the city and police to deal with the outrageous crime and problems that have followed the enormous influx of illegal aliens. The neighborhood is called "Rockwood". I bet if anyone Googled these keywords: Rockwood Gresham Oregon gangs, you would come up with a whole lot of archived articles, city and police memo's and data which would blow someones mind, for the size of city this is.

However, recently the businesses that have had a stronghold in that neighborhood, run by what I suspect are illegal aliens, have been getting their lease terminated by the city, in order to tear down all sorts of old buildings and start working on an urban renewal project. And...of course the business owners are doing the usual crying foul because they are "minority" business owners (in that neighbohood they are not).

When they do this "affordable housing"....all it means is there is a roof and maybe 4 walls and they get top notch prices for it.

I went throught this in NY.....Heck they'd rent a dog house with 1 electric plug and call it home.

Problem is...back then....it was "acceptable housing" unless you had kids....then there had to be other things....but still...what is legal to rent...fails the inspection for decent housing. What ticked me off BIG time here was .....there was this single parent hispanic woman....she rented in the slums....they said the conditions were like this because they "targeted" hispanics.....I wanted to scream!!!!! Hey...folks....that is and was the conditions that all poor people lived under....it wasn't especially rotton just for hispanics!!!!! Now what I've seen here.....all the owners of the rental units aren't black or white owners anymore.....they are hispanic owners. But NO>>>> we are especially targeting Hispanics.....no darling....they target POOR people. They are known as SLUM LORDS and they come in every color. This particular chick was ticked about a leaky water faucet......hey from what I hear....they don't even HAVE running water in Mexico for the poor. So how is this suddenly terrible awful conditions from where they came from? I've lived with busted windows, no heat , partial electric, sewage dumped on the lawn and no....now these "sudden" conditions are because they just want to target hispanics? This is how poor American citizens live......and you think you're special?

I have to say this as a "baby boomer" LATE....some of us are being willed houses.....I was.....but I was poor so I took up the option of living in it.....others don't have to.....they are signing them over to rental agents etc. These rental agents....are almost like the NEW slum lords. Without knowing it. I mean to the point where if you sign your house to a not-so-good Rental agency....you will be charged for things you thought was what the rental was supposed to do. This....in this area...has become the new wave of making owners responsible of tennants actions when you pay money for a rental agency to take care of. Rental agencys are saying....not my job!!!! But it supposidly was....here...it goes from the amount of people living in the unit...to cars in the yard and everything else...lawn mowing..... etc. They tell us....hey....good income!!!! Do it! Especially with housing like it is.....They just don't tell you the other side.....these people can do thousands of dollars worth of damage....not to mention unpaid utility bills....it traces back to you....YOU are responsible.

In Gresham, the majority of the American renters are working class poor. I guess we are considered one of those. The rest are illegal aliens.

What happens, and I have seen these neighborhoods go down into the dumps over the years, is the landlords buy up these properties and literally do nothing to maintain them, have no on site manger, no common area maintenance and all sorts of garbage goes on.

Most of these landlords do not even live in the area, some do, but few care till they are pushed, then they suddenly have a whole lot of excuses why they could not take care of things.

Now, on the flip side of this, I have seen how some people, Americans and illegals alike, will live if there is no on site manager who enforces a certain standard of living on them. In this complex, I have seen people let bags of trash sit on their patios or decks for over a week, till they have about 6 or so, it smells, there are bugs all around and in it.

I have seen them also let mold and mildew build up in the windows so bad they can't even see out of them (in the NW it will build up over the wet months along the bottom of the windows, all you have to do is spray a little bleach water on it and wipe!). What I have seen in the windows would take years to build up, there is no excuse for that.

All towns and cities need affordable housing, but we do not need slums. I know even if you as a tenant are poor, you can keep a clean house, and the same goes for a landlord who is not ultra wealthy, they too can keep things at least in safe working condition, many here in Gresham simply will not.