Lincoln Place Reprieve,
(Un)Doing the Shuffle
Lincoln Place Reprieve,
(Un)Doing the Shuffle
[Housing] Lincoln Place Reprieve
Elderly and disabled residents of the Lincoln Place apartment complex in Venice Beach have bought a little more time to try to save the home they love. Their landlord, the billion-dollar S&P 500 company AIMCO, agreed to come back to the negotiating table after having postponed the originally scheduled March 21 eviction, according to Amanda Seward, preservationist and member of the Lincoln Place Alliance.
In what Seward described as the largest eviction and lockout in L.A. history, hundreds of residents were ousted last year leaving only 80 elderly and disabled tenants residing in the expansive 795-unit complex. Displaced residents and affordable housing advocates had mustered attention by camping out in a ragged tent city across the street from Lincoln Place as well as staging 24-hour vigils.
These protests, along with pressure from L.A. City Councilman Bill Rosendahl, as well as Seward's nomination of Lincoln Place as an historical landmark to the California Register of Historic Resources, have all worked to bring AIMCO back to the drawing board. “It's such a big turn around that it's shocking,” says Seward.
Although the remaining residents are now cautiously optimistic that they may be able to keep their affordable housing complex from being leveled for luxury condo development, resident Bill Chappelle warns, “The threat is still hanging over our heads.” If AIMCO, tenants, and preservationists cannot agree on a compromise, evictions will take place May 31.
–Katherine Horn
[Even Less Housing] (Un)Doing the Shuffle
L.A. City Attorney Rocky Delgadillo announced in March the filing of a landmark suit against the owners of the downtown Frontier and Rosslyn residential hotels. The hoteliers are accused of enforcing a practice known as the “28-day shuffle,” which requires occupants to “move out” every 28 days, be it for a night or a week, thus enabling the hotels to avoid providing basic tenant's rights.
There are approximately 200 residential hotels in the City of Los Angeles, many of them downtown. These are establishments that offer inexpensive rooms and are often used by low-income people as a primary residence. The Frontier and Rosslyn Hotels have close to 500 units between them, with an estimated 750 occupants. The “shuffle” denies most residents basic rental protections, including the requirement that property owners maintain basic plumbing and electrical services and the protection of due cause in the case of evictions, meaning that the hotels can force occupants out at any time and without notice.
“[Residential hotels] are usually the housing of last resort,” says Becky Dennison, who, along with Pete White, co-directs the Los Angeles Community Action Network (LACAN), a community group that has brought the issue to the attention of city officials. Dennison says residents are often unaware of their rights or aren't willing to compromise their only means of housing by confronting the hotel operators. “These are very low-income people, so they're sort of at the end of their rope.”
Dennison says that when the tenants are forced out, those with money go to another hotel, while others go to local missions or end up on the street.
Although downtown L.A. is currently undergoing rapid gentrification, the LACAN directors say the 28-day shuffle issue has been ongoing for years. “Back in the day, the shuffle was used to maximize profits, but now they're utilizing it to create the illusion of transience on these floors,” says White. He adds that the shuffle makes it seem as if nobody is actually living in the hotels so that occupants can be forced to leave and parts of the establishment can be converted into high-end lofts. Indeed, the top two floors of the Frontier hotel are now being renovated into loft apartments, and a separate (and much improved) entrance has been created exclusively for the top levels of the hotel, with the elevator avoiding the floors with lower-income residents. Says White, “[The hotel] is really practicing segregation.”
“I wasn't expecting [the suit] at all, because we had run our policy past the housing department and the city attorney's office,” says Robert Frontiera, who co-owns both the Rosslyn and Frontier Hotels as part of Zuma Corp. and was named in the suit. Frontiera argued that implementing a 28-day policy allowed hotel operators to avoid the basic tenant application process for shorter-term guests, like asking for a credit check or a deposit.
Correcting the shuffle is difficult because the hotel occupants are “the perfect victims,” says Jonathan Gold, spokesman for the City Attorney's office. “They are one step away from living on the streets, and if they're forced out they become very hard to locate.”
“Nobody knew exactly who these tenants were,” says White. “You have disabled folks, veterans, working class people – it's a mix of L.A. living in these buildings,” says White. He hopes that this case will change perceptions of the real “criminal element” downtown.
The City Attorney's office hopes that the suit sends a firm message to other residential hotel operators. “We're are looking into the complaints,” says Gold, “and we won't stand by while the practice is conducted.”
“The poor folk down there don't really get represented,” says Dennison, who notes that ultimately, the goal of the suit is both simple and lofty. “What we hope is that everyone has the same basic tenant, human, and civil rights.”
–Krista WaltonPublished: 04/06/2006
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