East Bay tenants say they have to pay higher rent in ‘affordable’ apartment complex or leave

More than 50 percent were displaced when Villa Medanos' new owner converted the property to affordable housing.

ANTIOCH — Surrounded by paper piles and colorful empty bins stacked against her bedroom wall, retired preschool teacher Thelma Fields wonders when she will have to pack things up so her apartment complex can be converted to affordable housing.

The renovation work was promised months earlier, but the 73-year-old former Head Start teacher is just relieved the new owner of Villa Medanos finally approved her application to continue living there, even though it will be less affordable since her rent was hiked significantly.

“My rent went up $151 now and I’m the lowest on the ladder with a fixed income,” Fields said, shaking her head.

Fields, who is disabled, now pays $1,076 for her small one-bedroom apartment in the 112-unit complex where monthly rents under a new affordable housing program have risen by $100 to $375 and average $1,400.

Like many of her neighbors, she didn’t expect a big rent increase when Reliant Management Group took over in February with plans to renovate and make the complex “affordable.”

It wasn’t supposed to be like that, housing advocates say. In an effort to generate desperately needed affordable housing, California has pushed state and federal tax credit incentives for developers willing to provide it rather than building more expensive market-rate units.

But an unintended consequence of the program is that the rents of some of those affordable units have risen higher than what tenants previously paid, and as a result, many have had to move or be evicted from homes they once could afford, according to housing advocates.

Delia Pedroza, an ECHO Housing tenant counselor in Antioch, said she has never seen anything like the exodus at Villa Medanos, where about half of the tenants have left either because they didn’t meet income requirements or mistakenly thought they did not.

“This is the first I have heard of people being displaced like this,” she said, adding that Reliant Management’s purpose seems to be “to get the tenants out, raise the rents and have new rents pay for the renovation.”

Justine Marcus of Enterprise Community Partners, a nonprofit that works with partners to develop affordable housing, agreed that so many displacements are unusual.

“In the world of preservation of existing housing using the tax credit, there are regulatory requirements and then there are best practices for how we see mission-driven developers doing this work,” she said. “We see all of our partners doing their best to mitigate any potential displacement. This is an exception, and it needs to be called out. It’s only compounding our affordable housing crisis in the region without the time and support (to help relocate displaced residents).”

By way of comparison, Marcus points out that in its application for the housing credits, Reliant Management offered to pay $29,700 to relocate Villa Medanos’ tenants who don’t qualify for affordable units while MidPen Housing, a nonprofit developer, allocated $1,732,500 to help relocate tenants at the 55-unit Atherton Court Apartments in Redwood City.

Antioch city officials in January approved the California Public Finance Authority’s issuance of up to $31 million in housing revenue bonds to help Reliant Management rehabilitate Villa Medanos.

Reliant purchased Villa Medanos in February as part of a $116 million package of seven properties. It plans to renovate four of them to affordable housing complexes under a federal Low-Income Housing Tax Credit program that requires tenants to meet low-income requirements.

Many tenants said they were given only one-day notices about a Feb. 28 deadline to gather their employment and tax documents and complete the lengthy applications. New applications were later required in April. Some could have qualified but said they were confused and intimidated by the process and received little help from management.

Paul Rose, a Reliant Management spokesman, said tenants were given notice and offered help.

“We are very sympathetic to those who could have been uprooted through the creation of additional affordable housing in the Bay Area…”  Rose said, noting Villa Medanos sent notices to tenants and had extra staff available to help several days before the deadline.

Rose noted 52 of the 93 habitable apartments became vacant since Reliant Management took over the Antioch complex.  He estimated 18 units are still unoccupied.

“We don’t have the specific number of how many were displaced — tenants leave for a variety of reasons and we aren’t always provided with those reasons as to why they left,” he said.

Besides Villa Medanos, Reliant Management is converting the 68-unit Leisure Terrace in Hayward, the 105-unit River Park Manor in Napa and the 84-unit Willow Glen in Hercules.

Kara Broadfuehrer, with the National Housing Law Project nonprofit, estimates more than 100 people were displaced in Hayward, one of the first to convert, and more have been forced to leave at the other properties.

“They’ve done a poor job of communicating with tenants,” she said. “They were told they were not going to qualify — without going through the requisite paperwork.”

But Rose said claims of hundreds being displaced are exaggerated, noting there were only eight eviction filings in all.  At Villa Medanos, 22 were given 60-day notices, he said, but those were “intended as a reminder that tenants are required to income-qualify to live in the community … and were not the initiation of an eviction proceeding.”

Broadfuehrer counters that it all depends on how one defines “eviction.”

“If you tell someone they have to leave, that’s eviction,” she said, noting tenants don’t want to risk going to court and having an “eviction” on their record, making it impossible to rent elsewhere.

To qualify to live at Villa Medanos, the tenants’ household income must not exceed 60 percent of Contra Costa County’s median household income. A family of two, for example, couldn’t make more than $59,520. Reliant Management will reserve 10 percent of units for those at 50 percent of the area median household income.

Rose said all new tenants must have applications completed and certified as eligible by Dec. 31.

One of those relocating is Shannon Dye, who is leaving at the end of this month because she and her husband don’t meet the income cap.

“It was such a good place before because it was (natural) affordable housing,” Dye said. “It wasn’t creme de la creme but it was not the ghetto. There were decent people. It was nice and we felt very fortunate to have this place.”

The Dyes tried to fight it when they were told they must leave. They said mistakes were made and they were asked to reapply several times but were offered little help in the process.

Their rent was set to increase by $375 a month, and after a few months, Shannon Dye said she had enough. After being served with an eviction notice, they recently mediated and received a small settlement to relocate, she said.

“We want to get our own one-bedroom place — what we can afford,” Dye said. “After dealing with all this, I don’t want to deal with someone (a landlord) being over my head.”

Some tenants plan to petition city officials Tuesday to investigate how their complex’s conversion to affordable housing has been handled.

Meanwhile, Fields said she’s seen little work other than some tree removal, re-roofing and renovation of empty buildings. She packed her books and bought some plastic bins in July, but still hasn’t been told when the five-day renovations in her unit will begin.

Reliant Management said tenants will be offered day-time hospitality rooms where they can wait out renovations from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. while their units are being refurbished. All renovations, including $45,000 in major upgrades per unit and a new pool, will be completed by December, Rose said.

With Bay Area housing so expensive, many are willing to put up with the troubles for an “affordable” apartment, Fields said.

“People will do anything to stay,” she said. “One guy took less of a job, but some were forced to move in with family. It’s changing people’s lives in all kinds of ways.”