TENT-CITY CHRISTMAS
Lincoln Place residents refuse to leave affordable housing to make way for luxury condos
Evicted tenants of the Lincoln Place affordable housing complex in Venice Beach held an ecumenical mass and rally last week to protest the impending demise of their apartments to clear the way for luxury condos. A crowd of more than 100 gathered across Elkgrove Avenue from the Lincoln Place complex at a makeshift tent-city camp, which is now the temporary home to a group of displaced residents.
Lincoln Place tenants were famously snubbed during an L.A. City Council meeting last month, when council members wandered out of the chamber and threw a football back and forth while soon-to-be-evicted tenants tried to present their case.
The owners of Lincoln Place, a billion-dollar S&P 500 company named AIMCO, had the L.A. County Sheriff's Department serve court-ordered evictions to 52 families in the complex, according to the Lincoln Place Tenants Association (LPTA). Elderly and disabled residents are allowed to stay until March, but everyone else was ordered to get out. One resident said she had only two minutes' warning before the cops burst into her home. "It was pretty much like the Gestapo coming in and acting like it was a drug bust. It was horrifying," said Erin Grayson, who has lived in Lincoln Place for four years.
Pattie Schwayder, senior vice president of AIMCO, said residents were given plenty of notice. She said AIMCO warned them in October 2004, and 80 percent of the residents left voluntarily. AIMCO hired a relocation specialist, moved people to other properties in the area, and gave families up to $10,000 each. The dissenters, said Schwayder, are just a small group. "Unfortunately, these folks are more interested in seeking attention than seeking new places to live," Schwayder said.
The fight to keep Lincoln Place intact is not new. The LPTA says AIMCO, which became full owner of Lincoln Place in 2003, is only the latest landlord with a thirst for redevelopment, and so far it is making good progress toward that goal. Lincoln Place is a 795-unit complex on 35 acres just a mile from the ocean. "Look where we are," said resident Spike Marlin. "If you put in a 60-foot tower, you've got an ocean view. This place is gold." Marlin said some displaced residents are now living with friends, others are in the tent city, and still others are now homeless because affordable housing is so tough to find.
Cast-out residents have been locked out and say AIMCO is making it difficult for them to get back in to retrieve their possessions. Evicted tenants must schedule an appointment to get back into their old places, but Grayson said management has not been very flexible with the times. She had to leave her job as a middle-school teacher in the middle of the day to retrieve her belongings. "I only had two hours to basically dump everything in my apartment out on the lawn."
Newly elected L.A. City Councilman Bill Rosendahl, whose district includes Venice, agreed that the eviction was ugly but not against the law. "The way they went about it was sad and unacceptable," he said. When asked if there was anything he or the mayor could do to help, Rosendahl explained that at the moment he felt powerless. L.A. City Attorney Rocky Delgadillo told Rosendahl that what AIMOC is doing is perfectly legal since it gave residents warning as well as relocation money. Rosendahl said a deal he sponsored in October fell apart because he couldn't please preservationists, tenants, and developers. However, the councilman said he would continue seeking a resolution.
Rosendahl said he is worried that affordable housing is being threatened, not just in Venice, but across the city. He said a solution would be to find "visionary developers" who work with tenants to help them buy into a new condo of their own instead of just booting them out. "There are creative developers around the nation that are doing that," he said, adding that he wished that were the case here.
In the meantime, ousted residents remain camped in their tent city, a far cry from the cozy homes they once inhabited. "We are going to stay camped here as long as it takes," Grayson maintained. "We're going to pray, and we're going to fight, but we are going to fight peacefully."
Published: 12/22/2005
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