Asbury Tenants Weblog

Jul 30, 2004  
06:22:23 PM  
LOS ANGELES CA US  
RECEIVER NOT IN, 3RD DELIVERY ATTEMPT;UNABLE TO CONTACT RECEIVER  

Jul 30, 2004  
02:35:00 PM  
LOS ANGELES CA US  
RECEIVER NOT IN, 3RD DELIVERY ATTEMPT  

Jul 29, 2004  
12:13:00 PM  
LOS ANGELES CA US  
RECEIVER NOT IN ON 2ND DELIVERY ATTEMPT  

Jul 28, 2004  
02:18:00 PM  
LOS ANGELES CA US  
RECEIVER NOT IN ON 1ST DELIVERY ATTEMPT  

Jul 28, 2004  
05:08:00 AM  
LOS ANGELES CA US  
OUT FOR DELIVERY  

Anybody remember when you could actually get packages delivered at the Asbury?

DHL tried to deliver a package to me, apparently last Friday. Twice. But it required a signature.

I didn't get the package, nor did I receive any notice that a delivery was attempted. Where did the notice go? I don't know. I just spent a half-hour figuring out what happened and trying to get a re-delivery worked out. Who knows how much more time I'll have to put in on this quest.

I remember back when the management of the Asbury did not try to make it HARDER to live at the Asbury.

Of course, that was back when they filled vacancies primarily with tenant referrals (i.e., good word of mouth) rather than with government money. Why should HUD give a shit how easy it is to get a package at the Asbury?

And if HUD doesn't care, why should the John Stewart Company?

I miss capitalism.

From the comments on the entry below:

Has anyone complained to the Los Angeles Housing Partnership regarding how John Stewart Company has been dealing with our building issues? LAHP are the actual owners of the building and have control over the John Stewart Company.

Is this true? I have to confess, I haven't been keeping up with Asbury issues (I guess I'm fortunate not to have many). But if the actual owners are LAHP, that's pretty interesting. Anyone have confirmation on this?

There's a rat trying to gnaw its way into my apartment.

Not kidding.

I bang on the wall and floor and it stops for awhile, then starts again.

A tenant I encountered in the hall recently sends this email to me, which the tenant asked me to post here:

The information below may be of help to Asbury tenants discomfited by changes in ownership here.  Caveat emptor:  I'm not an attorney.  Use at your own risk, as the saying goes. 

1. A good local lead for tenants' rights is the Coalition for Economic Survival, which now boasts one of the most difficult web sites I've ever seen:  http://nkla.sppsr.ucla.edu/ces/.  Their phone number is 323 656-4410.  They host free weekly clinics at 7377 Santa Monica Blvd. (cross Martel) on Saturday at 10 a.m. and Wednesday at 7 p.m.  (Donation requested)  You can good information here on tenant organizing, but, unfortunately, are unlikely to meet an attorney who knows about HUD housing matters.

2.  I found this document on the HUD web site, which I believe applies to tenants here: 

http://www.hud.gov/offices/cpd/affordablehousing/library/tenadisp.pdf

It uses the phrase "Uniform Relocation Assistance and Real Property Acquisition Policies Act of 1970, as amended," which was used in several notices received by tenants here.  That's why I think it applies. 

3.      I spoke to the National Alliance of Hud Tenants in Boston.  Web site:  http://www.saveourhomes.org.  Phone:  (617) 267-9564.  They weren't able to find the Asbury in the HUD database of projects, and thus weren't able to tell me what kind of funding was used.  However, the database is (I think) Section 8 only, so maybe it's not surprising that the Asbury isn't there.

However, they did make these suggestions, listed in declining order of value (in my opinion, anyway):

a)      There will be a Project Manager at HUD for the Asbury, and the Project Manager will pretty much have to talk to us.   HUD's contact information here:

http://www.hud.gov/local/ca/working/localoffices.cfm

Los Angeles HUD Office

Dept. of Housing and Urban Development
AT&T Building
611 West Sixth Street,
Suite 800
Los Angeles, CA 90017

Phone: (213) 894-8000
Fax: (213) 894-8096
TTY: (213)894-8133
Jurisdiction: Primarily Los Angeles, Ventura, Santa Barbara, San Luis Obisbo, Mono, and Inyo Counties

Theresa Camiling, Field Office Director

Office Hours: 8:00 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.
Monday through Friday

It may be better to go there in person.  (Just a guess.)

b) Los Angeles County should have a Registry of Deeds with information about the purchase of the Asbury.

c) A Freedom of Information Act request could be filed with HUD, the CA state finance agency (??) and the Housing Authority requesting information on the Asbury purchase.  The National Alliance has a couple of samples online:

http://www.saveourhomes.org/tenants/samples/foiasample.pdf

http://www.saveourhomes.org/tenants/samples/foiasample02.pdf

d) A local political representative may be willing to intercede on our behalf. 

                                        * * * * *

The change of ownership has been a boon to some elderly tenants, who will benefit justly from reduced rent.  We have heat now, which indicates that the owners aren't trying to pinch pennies.  The new owners may be idealistic people, in their own way.  And I, at least, think that the construction crew has done a good job.  Some in the crew have been remarkably diplomatic; put yourself in their shoes and imagine what it must have been like to share a passenger elevator with angry tenants for several weeks while the freight elevator wasn't repaired.

But the freight elevator should have been repaired promptly.  '05 tenants should have been given appropriate compensation for being moved out of their apartments.  The intercom should have been repaired in October, when it broke.  Mail should be delivered, and packages watched over, so they aren't stolen. 

When Steve and Jim owned the building, broken stuff got fixed.  Not everyone was happy with Steve and Jim, but "It'll get done Monday." meant Monday is when it would get done ... and not five Mondays hence. 

Jim was an owner of the building? Fix-it Man Jim? I had no idea.

I feel much as this tenant does. The construction guys are amazingly courteous. I used to work construction, and, believe me, not every contractor makes sure his employees are this professional and civil. Kudos much deserved, from my point of view. (Feel free to post yours, of course.)

But also things are very different now as far as attending to the day-to-day needs of the Asbury and we Asburians. It seems to be a completely different approach. I speculate that the reason there is only one extremely over-extended employee here instead of the three or more formerly in the office is that the profit motive is disappearing along with the transformation into HUD housing. Before, the owners knew that when somebody moved out, they would have to try to attract someone else to move into that vacancy--and they wanted to get as high a rent on that apartment as possible. Thus, it behooved them to have satisfied tenants (most vacancies were filled by tenant referrals, I was told by Peter, the manager a few years ago) and attractive apartments.

Now, what's the motivation to make the Asbury as pleasant as reasonably possible? The rents on HUD apartments are fixed--they can't go any higher. There is no financial benefit, that I can see, to being as conscientous as the Asbury's former owners.

Of course, I could be wrong about this. The tenant who sent me the above info actually seemed to disagree somewhat with this analysis (and the new owners' willingness to spend money on heat would seem to contradict it). But if I had 99 apartments, all of which rented for fixed amounts no matter what I did (I assume the owners' goal is 100% HUD housing), I don't know what my motivation would be to make life at the Asbury any better than the minimum it needed to be to get people to move in at those fixed bargain rents.

I'll be trying to find out more information myself, when I get a chance. Some big-picture questions I'm interested in:

1. I was told by a John Stewart employee that "HUD housing is big business." How big a business is it? What is the size of the grant the John Stewart company is getting from the government?

2. From its perspective, how does the John Stewart company make more money? Does their bottom line increase with every tenant they get to leave the Asbury? If so, by how much?

3. What other buildings have undergone this process with this company, and what are the stories the tenants there have to tell?

Like most tenants, I would imagine, I know nothing about how the HUD housing game works. Of course, the owners know it inside and out. It would be great to make up this gap in knowledge.

If you know anything at all about these or other issues, by all means please post a comment or sign up to post to the blog.

I have no idea how they found us, but the site L.A. Blogs linked to this blog today.