Asbury Tenants Weblog

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.

Three more Asbury residents have requested posting info in the hours since the post below. Including me, that makes six participants so far in the first two days of the blog.

Just so you know, the process works like this: You email me, then I send you a message through the Blogger interface. The rest happens between you and Blogger. I will not know your password, and you choose your own login name. The whole thing takes about two minutes.

Still waiting for the first non-BrianF original post. You could be first...

This weblog has been public for about 24 hours.

Stats so far:

2 new members. Welcome to Asbury residents Azalea and Jim, who are already posting comments.

Just a reminder: Anyone can post comments, anonymously or otherwise. But if you're an Asbury tenant and you email me a quick note, you can also post entries (like this one).

Posted in the elevator:



I have to admit I don't know anything about what some tenants are apparently experiencing with regard to relocation. I see the notices now and then in the elevator, but I haven't happened to talk to anyone who is going through this process.

If you have some information that might clue in the rest of us in, please post a comment here (or email me to get a login to post).

It's weird to live in this building and not really have an idea of what is going on here.

Remember this?

There was a hilarious follow-up that talked about the dangers of Chinese water dragons, but I didn't get a picture of it.

I still don't know if this one was real. But it did make me glad that the giant hole in my wall had been sealed shut with plywood and screws.

I shot the above pic on Dec. 28. (I blurred out the info because I had also posted this picture somewhere else.)

Boy, do I miss Luna Sol. I don't miss waiting twenty minutes in line to order, and another half hour for the food, but I sure do miss the food. And the atmosphere. But especially the food.

That wasn't just some of the best food in the MacArthur Park area, it was some of the best food in Los Angeles. Sometimes I ate there twice a day. And I never once had a bad meal, in six years or so.

I really miss it. The sudden disappearance of Luna Sol was like losing a friend. A shaggy, Marxist, always-running-late friend.

Anyway, lately I've been ordering from an Indian place on Vermont called Halal Tandoori, which was recommended by Heather Havrilesky, a blogger from Los Feliz:

Are you sick of crappy Indian food? So am I! But I just discovered a great place that delivers to my neighborhood and, based on the conversations I've had with these guys, it seems like they could use a little business.

Halal Tandoori
401 S. Vermont Ave. LA
(they deliver to Los Feliz, probably Hollywood and SilverLake as well)
(213) 383-9976

I love the Chicken Tikka Masala and the Sag Paneer the best here. Cheese naan is also excellent. Could cheese naan really be an authentic Indian food? Do I give a sh**? Cheese and naan, together? It's too good to be true.

It's pretty good food. I've ordered from there a few times. Say hi to Mohammed for me.

I have heard totally unsubstantiated rumors that a Starbucks may replace Luna Sol. Don't get me started.

As part of the ownership change, the management staff has been slashed by two-thirds at the Asbury. Brian is the only manager present at any given time.

This has seriously affected the security of the mail in the office. To keep from being bothered by tenants, Brian has put our packages on the other side of the wall, where he can't see them--or who is taking them.

If you were here before the ownership change, you probably remember that the mail used to be tracked by the managers--the packages were checked in, and you were supposed to sign for them as you picked them up. The system wasn't perfect, but it was relatively secure. If someone were to take a package that didn't belong to them, they'd likely be seen by one of the managers.

It's not that way anymore. Any tenant can take any package and not have to worry about the potential of being caught. The packages are not checked in, and they are not even within the peripheral vision of any manager.

Today I discovered that a package of books I ordered from Amazon was most likely stolen from that area. The USPS tracking page shows the package was delivered at 3 p.m. on Jan. 7 to the Asbury. The Foy Station says they don't have it there. (There was no notice in my mailbox, either.) The package apparently made it to the Asbury and then...disappeared. Given the facts, I'd say there's about a 90% chance it was taken by someone from the unattended, unsecure area where our packages are now kept. A large package from Amazon--obviously brand-new merchandise of some kind--makes a tempting target for someone with sticky fingers, especially if there is nobody watching.

The day I moved into the Asbury I had a bag of groceries stolen. I left it unattended while I ran back to my car. Taught me a lesson: Don't leave things unattended at the Asbury.

Our mail is unattended.

When Brian told me he put our packages where he couldn't see them because he didn't want to be bothered by tenants picking up mail, I understood. If I were doing a job that formerly took three people--plus supervising construction--I wouldn't want to be bothered either.

But that doesn't change the fact that we used to have a relatively secure, workable system for large packages here, and now we apparently don't.

This is a blog for the tenants of the Asbury apartment building in Los Angeles.

Any tenant can post entries. It's easy.

Email me to get a login/password to be able to post to the blog.

Oh, and also email me to tell me if there is a link you'd like to see over in the right-hand column of this blog. Community groups, government sites, your own website, anything that relates in some way to life here at the Asbury.

And also feel free to comment/suggest/criticize. It's your blog, too.

My name is Brian. But I'm not that Brian--not the manager of the Asbury.

I'm a tenant. I live on the 8th Floor. I've been a resident of the Asbury for about six years. Throughout that time, I've always been frustrated that there wasn't a way for tenants to pool information here.

So I decided to start this blog to take a stab at creating a bulletin board of sorts.

I don't plan to try to control the blog in any significant way. It only took me about half an hour to set it up (free) with BlogSpot. The only administrative function I plan to have is to give you a login/pass that you can use to post here (if you're a tenant at the Asbury). You don't have to tell me your name or unit number if you don't want to. We'll use the honor system.

My hope is that this site turns into a place where you go to seek current information about the Asbury, and, especially, to post information you know about the Asbury.