‘A humanitarian crisis’: Tenants forced out of Paso apartments struggle to find new housing
The clock is ticking for hundreds of renters living in the slum-like Grand View Apartments in Paso Robles.
Their complex is infested with bedbugs, mold and other vermin. They’re throwing their furniture out and sleeping on the floor. And in a matter of weeks, they’ll be homeless.
All of that has left more than 200 people struggling to find new places to live after their landlords decided to go out of business rather than make millions of dollars in needed repairs.
They have until until November or December to move — a situation their lawyer calls “a humanitarian crisis.”
On May 7, tenants filed a class-action lawsuit against Ebraim and Fahimeh Madadi, their Santa Barbara County landlords, claiming they’ve been living with vermin infestations, mold, plumbing issues and other problems for years.
Later that month, San Luis Obispo County Superior Court Judge Ginger Garrett approved an injunction prohibiting the Madadis from collecting rent due to the condition of the complex.
But Garrett then ruled the landlords — who claimed they couldn’t afford to make the necessary $2.5 million in repairs — could go out of business and begin serving tenants 60- to 90-day notices to vacate starting on Sept. 27.
Now, tenants and housing advocates are desperately searching for a solution.
The struggle to find new housing
Tribune reporters visited the complex this week and spoke with tenants living in multiple apartments, all of whom have had difficulty finding new housing.
Some residents were nervous about discussing the situation, saying they’d prefer to keep to themselves. Others showed their apartments and were candid about their struggles.
When Grand View was full, about 200 people lived at the complex, which was built in 1953 and is made up of multiple buildings that contain 54 units.
A sizable number of Grand View tenants are school-age children — 62 students enrolled in Paso Robles Joint Unified School District classes live at the complex, according to Stephanie Barclay of the SLO Legal Assistance Foundation.
As of Oct. 22, 45 units remain occupied, Barclay said. She and Allen Hutkin of Hutkin Law Firm have been representing the tenants in civil court.
In spite of the terrible conditions, many tenants have continued living there for years because new housing is so challenging to find or they haven’t had the means to move.
The city currently has a 1.9% rental housing vacancy rate, according to U.S. Census Bureau data.
Most of the residents primarily speak Spanish and many work around the Paso Robles area in the service and agriculture industries — they want to keep living close to their jobs, if possible.
Nearly all of the residents’ apartments are infested with bedbugs — which Spanish-speaking tenants call “chinches” — and many tenants have been forced to throw out pieces of furniture ahead of their move.
Discarded recliners, mattresses and dressers are piled up along the fence at the back of the property.
In addition to losing furniture to the infestation, renters are concerned the bedbugs and Grand View’s notoriety might make it hard for them to find new apartments.
The Tribune declined to name Grand View residents who spoke with reporters to protect their privacy as they look for new housing.
‘This is how we live’
One renter, a 68-year-old woman who’s lived in her apartment for two years, is among the group of tenants who contacted lawyers after becoming disgusted with conditions in their units.
She’s lived in Paso Robles for more than 20 years and previously worked as a house cleaner until on-the-job injuries forced her to have surgery on both of her knees.
When she could no longer work, she had to move out of her previous housing and find something cheaper, which brought her to Grand View.
Soon after she moved into her apartment, she began receiving bedbug bites and seeing cockroaches and rats. After talking to her neighbors, she realized they were all living with similar problems.
Frustrated that she and her neighbors were paying rent to live in such run-down conditions, the woman contacted a lawyer in Los Angeles who helped her find local attorneys.
Now, she keeps her clothes in suitcases, dumped her mattress because of the bedbugs, and sleeps on the floor with blankets. She sprinkles bug-killing powder around her apartment, which helps with the infestations but aggravates her asthma.
As someone who previously cleaned houses for a living, the woman said the state of her apartment deeply bothers her. Her home is spotless, but the pests continue to make their way inside, and she’s constantly scratching at her arms.
“We live in the United States,” she said in Spanish. “And this is how we live.”
The renter is a small woman, but she stands up tall and looks people directly in the eyes when she’s talking to them. When she’s on a mission, she makes it clear she will not be ignored.
She wants people to know the Grand View tenants are not dirty people — that they’re not animals and that Latinos have rights, she said.
She’s not sure where she’ll go after leaving her apartment. She’d like to get a place of her own, but she has friends in the area and children in Atascadero, Fresno and Los Angeles who she could stay with temporarily.
Her main concern is the families with children — that’s the reason she decided to contact lawyers, she said. She gets choked up talking about them, how she worries they won’t be able to find a new place to live because of the bedbugs.
She’s fighting for them, she said, not for herself.
Other renters’ challenges
Other Grand View tenants have similar concerns.
One renter — a grape-picker whose baby daughter has bedbug bites — said in Spanish he and his family moved into Grand View because it’s close to the vineyards where he works.
They must leave their apartment in November, but they’ve had a tough time finding a new home because they’re undocumented immigrants and they earn too much money to qualify for subsidized housing.
Some residents are talking about staying in hotels, in their cars or even under bridges, he said.
Another tenant, who also works as a grape-picker, said in Spanish that she hasn’t been able to find a new place to live because of her poor credit.
She moved to Paso Robles from Oxnard two years ago because picking strawberries was too hard on her back. The woman shares a room with her son and sends money to her four other children in Mexico.
Two other renters share her apartment’s second bedroom, the walls of which are covered in black mold.
The tenant has had to throw away two mattresses due to her apartment’s bedbug infestation, so she now sleeps on a blanket on the floor. Even so, the bugs and itching from the bites continue to make it hard for her to sleep, she said.
She desperately wants to leave, but hasn’t yet found a place that will take her.
A humanitarian crisis
Barclay and Hutkin, the tenants’ attorneys, appealed to the Paso Robles City Council for help on Oct. 1. A large group of Grand View tenants was in the audience.
“Your city is now facing a humanitarian crisis on its hands,” Hutkin said. “This crisis is going to fall on your working poor.”
The following week, the lawyers organized a workshop to help connect renters with resources, including Peoples’ Self-Help Housing, the Housing Authority of San Luis Obispo and the Paso Robles Housing Authority.
The organizations offer subsidized housing for qualifying renters, but they typically have few available units and long waiting lists.
The final phase of Oak Park, an under-construction Paso Robles Housing Authority complex, will be complete by March. But families would have to find housing in the interim.
However, residents must apply and qualify for that housing, which requires them to meet certain income thresholds. Not all Grand View renters will likely be accepted as tenants.
City staff will conduct inspections at Grand View this week, Barclay said in an email. The city is planning to reach out to Paso Robles hotel owners in an effort to find residents a temporary place to stay, City Manager Tom Frutchey told The Tribune.
Peoples’ Self-Help Housing is assisting residents with the relocation process, and staff have been visiting the complex to better understand tenants’ needs, said John Fowler, the nonprofit’s president.
For tenants to successfully find new housing, they’ll likely need longer than November or December — February would be a better estimate, Fowler said.
“We’re trying everything,” Fowler said.
This story was originally published October 24, 2019 at 5:00 AM.
