Residential Hotels Must be Improved, Not Eliminated

by Barbara Schultz

Skid Row has been discovered by loft dwellers, redevelopment boosters, and, most recently, by the L.A. City Attorney's office. The latter filed an injunction against the Frontier Hotel, one of about 23 single-room occupancy residential hotels in the Skid Row area. All told, there are about 3,700 residential hotel units throughout Skid Row.

The city attorney seems to be threatening to close the hotel if the owner doesn't comply with a series of reforms to abate nuisance activity around the hotel. Everyone, the hotel residents most of all, want to see nuisance activity stopped. And some business owners and loft-dwellers would no doubt welcome the hotel's closure. Yet those concerned with housing issues see profound consequences from such an action, namely the loss of 450 affordable housing units.

These residential hotels are the housing of last resort for extremely low-income people-the next step down for many is a cardboard box. And while these hotels are not desirable for families, unfortunately more and more live in them because of the lack of affordable alternatives.

The Regional Housing Needs Assessment states that Los Angeles needs over 60,000 units built by 2005. Add to that another 3,000 to 4,000 Skid Row residents sleeping on the streets each night and the only real solution is more residential hotels and other affordable housing, not less.

According to the mayor's report of the Housing Trust Fund Advisory Committee, the principal priority of the trust fund is to preserve and expand affordable housing. One of the overall goals in the housing element of the city's general plan is to preserve and rehabilitate residential hotels. Yet the city, with the mayor and Council's blessing, is now encouraging and rewarding the conversion of residential hotels to market rate housing by offering a series of incentives and benefits to owners through the adaptive reuse ordinance.

This ordinance was originally meant to increase the number of housing units by making it easier to convert abandoned commercial buildings to residential use. If we allow conversion from less expensive to more expensive units, then the overall number of housing units will decrease. For example, the owner of the Frontier has plans to convert his 450 single-room occupancies into 120 market-rate lofts.

Redevelopment, of course, is the reason for all the sudden interest in Skid Row by developers, government agencies and officials. In addition to encouraging the conversion of residential hotels, there are proposals for an anti-homeless ordinance to ban public distribution of food and an anti-camping ordinance to punish people who have no where to sleep. And then there's the redevelopment plan with its vision of a new "mixed income" downtown.

No one wants Skid Row to remain the way it is now, and so most housing advocates, social service providers and residents support this concept. The thornier question is what needs to be done to achieve this vision. Despite the fact that low-income people have lived in this community for many decades, the city's predominant view of the new downtown would exclude both residential hotels and those who so badly need it. More than 6500 market rate units planned for downtown Los Angeles, so achieving a mixed-income community does not require the conversion or demolition of the residential hotels.

What we do need are policies that rehabilitate residential hotels. Private owners who are unwilling or unable to get these units up to code and keep the properties nuisance-free should be encouraged to sell to non-profits. The city needs to enable non-profits to buy, rehabilitate and run residential hotels efficiently.

The city should enforce tenant rights and its rent control ordinance and state law by stopping hotel owners from engaging in the 28-day shuffle. This is a practice where the hotel tenant is forced to move rooms or move out for a night in an illegal attempt by owners to avoid creating a tenancy and the rights that come with it.

It is imperative that we acknowledge that residential hotel units are permanent housing. The Community Redevelopment Agency and city council should formally recognize that these units are permanent units that would require replacement for any redevelopment activity.

Finally, the council should enact a moratorium on residential hotel demolition/conversions, as they did in the late 80s, until a concrete plan is in place to deal with the lack of affordable housing.

The real final frontier will be a city that no longer needs residential hotels because every resident is able to afford something better. Unfortunately that day appears to be a long way off. Until then, if we desire a new mixed-income downtown community, we must make room for the residential hotels and our low-income neighbors who have no where else to go.

Barbara Schultz is a LAFLA staff attorney.

This commentary originally ran in the Moday, March 17, 2003 edtion of the Daily Journal.

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