Council Backs Plan to Shelter the Homeless in Vacant Houses

The Los Angeles City Council unanimously approved a program Tuesday to shelter homeless families in vacant houses in North Hollywood--but the department expected to administer the program pulled out, predicting that it will flop.

“We just didn’t see it as a viable program,” said Barbara Zeidman, a senior official in the city’s Housing Preservation and Production Department. “But we do wish them good luck.”

Her department decided months ago not to participate in the program, she revealed in an interview Tuesday.

Subsequently, the city’s Community Development Department agreed to run the one-year trial program, under which the city will offer inducements to owners of vacant houses awaiting demolition to allow homeless families to live in them rent-free.

“Any time there’s a new program, there’s going to be some concerns,” said council President John Ferraro, who wrote the motion beginning the experiment. “But let’s try it. If it doesn’t work, we can abandon it. It doesn’t cost very much.”

The budget for the program is $15,000.

Proponents say property owners will gain from taking part in the program because they will save money by avoiding the city requirement that vacant houses be boarded up and fenced. In effect, the homeless family will become a caretaker.

Additionally, the city has agreed to expedite building permits for participating property owners. Most owners of empty houses are developers who leave their properties vacant while they seek approval for larger plans, Ferraro’s office contends.

But the program’s flaw is that developers with houses that are habitable will rent them, not leave them vacant, said Zeidman, who heads the rent control unit of the city’s housing department. Houses that are not being rented are probably so dilapidated that it would be less costly for the owners to board and fence them than to fix them to meet the building codes for a residence, she said.

In addition, Zeidman predicted, developers won’t risk acquiring tenants who might refuse to leave after the developer is ready to demolish the house, necessitating an eviction action that could cause costly delays.

“At best, it takes four months for a contested eviction and an average of 37 days for an uncontested one,” she said.