A Community’s Fight to Preserve Affordable Housing
For 15 years, it was a ritual that kept Andrés Cortes close to his beloved abuelita. He would collect the rent from the other four tenants of her Cypress Park rental property, add his own, and deliver the envelope in person to the family homestead a few blocks away.
A Legacy of Stewardship
The unwritten contract expired in March when the widowed Rufina Cortes died at 97. Her six children faced the inevitable decision to put the five-unit property, in the family since the 1970s, up for sale. The tenants needed a buyer who would be willing to sacrifice profit to keep the rents affordable. But to buy the property at current market rates without jacking up rents, even an altruist would have to come up with some unlikely financial wizardry.
A Community’s Concerns
Andrés Cortes and his partner, Claire Bernson, found themselves increasingly dismayed with a string of investors and developers brought through their one-bedroom cottage on the two-lot complex. "They weren’t hiding anything," Cortes said. "They wanted to get rid of us. While we were right in front of them, they will be talking about tearing down walls. It was dehumanizing."
A New Path Forward
The tenants of Arvia Street knew how this situation normally played out in L.A.: "cash for keys" to remove the nine tenants, demolition, new construction, and higher rents presaging a change of character for the prewar homes on Arvia Street, part of one of L.A.’s last neighborhoods still largely untouched by gentrification.
A Chance Meeting
The story of his family’s three-generation stewardship of the property – and its impending end – naturally became intertwined with the project as a autobiographical story of his bonding with the community. As the tour was breaking up, one of the participants pointed Cortes to Betty Avila. She is a board member of LA Más, a Cypress Park-based nonprofit that seeks to build "collective power and ownership for neighborhood stability and economic resilience" throughout Northeast Los Angeles.
A Collaborative Effort
The chance meeting came at a perfect moment. After focusing for several years on helping Northeast Los Angeles homeowners build backyard units, LA Más was expanding into housing preservation. "We went through a year of engagement with our community members asking, ‘What do you want us to do?’ " said executive director Helen Leung. "They chimed in, ‘There is so much risk of displacement: a lot of residents getting kicked out; no affordable options. Can you find options to keep housing affordable for longtime residents?’ "
The Solution
Ariva would be the test case with challenges. The six children of Felipe and Rufina Cortes agreed to discount the $1.5 million listed price. But the rents of $600 to $1,000 were far too low to support financing the final price of $1.2 million. "No way we could get money for that," Leung said. "It didn’t pencil out. What can we do?"
A Creative Solution
Four of the five tenants, among them a couple with a teenage daughter who has lived there her entire life, volunteered to raise their own rents, but that was not a solution either. By law, the rent-stabilized units couldn’t rise high enough to service a mortgage. Looking over the four buildings on the property – the single family home Cortes and Bernson live in, two duplexes and an ancient tool shed refashioned as an artist’s studio – LA Más concluded the shed would have to go to make room for an ADU that would bring in market-rate rent.
Conclusion
The Arvia Street purchase is part of a movement of community-based groups trying to slow displacement of low-income tenants by purchasing historically affordable housing at risk of being sold to investors seeking maximum return. There is no single model. Some use government funds. Others, under the land trust model, help tenants purchase the buildings they live in. The only constant is that it’s complicated.
FAQs
Q: What is LA Más?
A: LA Más is a Cypress Park-based nonprofit that seeks to build "collective power and ownership for neighborhood stability and economic resilience" throughout Northeast Los Angeles.
Q: How did the community come together to preserve affordable housing?
A: The community came together through a chance meeting between Andrés Cortes and Betty Avila, a board member of LA Más, and a collaborative effort to find a solution to preserve affordable housing.
Q: What was the solution to preserve affordable housing?
A: The solution was a multi-pronged approach that included financing from the Self Help Ventures Fund, a national nonprofit, and grants from the LA4LA program and the Local Initiatives Support Corp. (LISC).
Q: What is the current status of the property?
A: The property is now owned by an LLC controlled by LA Más and Self Help, with a required component of tenant engagement and a commitment to preserve affordable housing.
