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Gimme Shelter

Photo by Erin N. Calmes

Are You Kidding?: Bradon, Corrin and Carry Jr. chill out next to the fridge in a small room that serves triple-duty as bedroom, living room and dining room for them and their father at Hidden Court.

Exploitation, racism and denial in the Santa Cruz low-income housing racket

By Kelly Luker

It is the housing of last resort. The wolves of poverty, sickness or just plain bad luck have chewed through whatever safety net might have existed, and the unfortunate souls freefall from their homes into living in cars, campgrounds or the streets. Perhaps they are farmworkers, trying to save enough money to bring the rest of the family over the border. And then there's society's underbelly--drug dealers, hookers, addicts and ex-cons.

What unites these disparate souls is their quest for a roof over their heads. A roof that doesn't demand credit checks and references, the prohibitive first/last/deposit chunk of change and, preferably, a roof that lets them pay week by week, whenever the government assistance check comes in, enough cans and bottles get collected, the tricks pay or the dope gets sold.

Don't talk to these folks about government-subsidized low-income housing. The Santa Cruz Housing Authority's executive director, Mary James, will tell them that a 10- or 15-year wait is not unusual.

Instead, they will turn to a handful of landlords scattered throughout the county, apartment owners who are willing to meet the needs of this population--for a price. Renters searching for that last-ditch break before the streets discover that "affordable," paradoxically, does not mean inexpensive. By paying week to week, tenants often pay far more--even by Santa Cruz's inflated values--than other renters who can meet the criteria of legitimacy that property owners usually establish.

Some landlords who specialize in low-income housing--like Jerry Eidem, owner of Ocean Street's Sleep Tight Motel--say they are offering a valuable opportunity to men and women who might otherwise not find a place to live. A few of his tenants agree, praising Eidem for helping them get off the street when no other landlord would take the risk.

But neighbors and community activists counter that Eidem and his ilk are merely opportunists whose rental policies and shoddy housing attract tenants who seem to unload drugs, gang problems and urban blight with the rest of their often meager belongings. These critics charge that such rental properties have a direct effect on the deterioration of safety, property values and living conditions in the surrounding community.

As the middle class continues to shrink, creating an ever-widening yawn between security and poverty, the future may witness even more people knocking on these particular doors, hoping for a little shelter. They may find that there are two different stories there--those who live behind the door and those who own it.

Breaking the Code

Long before the gangs, the drive-bys and the graffiti, one can almost imagine when this unnamed courtyard of cottages on Santa Cruz's lower Ocean Street provided a welcome seaside getaway from the stresses of city life. It is no longer visited by tourists, but instead by Los Sureños, a gang that's staked its claim to the real estate.

It also gets visited by the Santa Cruz police department--a lot. According to police records, this address had the police summoned more than 190 times over a recent 12-month period, nearly every other day. Neighbors complain of gunfire splitting the darkness and the drugs that change hands in the shadows. Besides the police department, the property owners--Charlotte and Warren Gooden--are also well known by the city code-enforcement officers, the city attorney's office, the Legal Aid Society and the local community organization Neighbors of Lower Ocean (NOLO).

It is this latter group of citizens that is prepared to see the Goodens in court in order to get them to clean up their place.

The assessor's office notes that the property ownership was transferred to Gooden's son, Daryl Jessen, in August of this year. However, both Jessen's wife, Stephanie, and Charlotte Gooden maintain that the transfer was made to help Jessen attain a loan, and that Daryl Jessen has had minimal involvement with the property. Gooden insists that she still holds the deed.

How many dwellings actually exist at 350 Ocean is some matter of debate. Linda Garner of city code enforcement says that 13 units are legally allowed. But tenants who live there report that the Goodens are actually collecting rent from at least a dozen more. Over the years, attached carports were given a window and some carpeting, creating 32 rental units, almost 20 more than allowed by law.

The city sued, and although the case was settled out of court, nothing much appears to have changed. In a recent interview, tenants speculated on how the Goodens maneuver around the existing code.

I am sitting in a small kitchenette with an investigator and one of the tenants of 350 Ocean, our conversation kept in rhythm by the steady drip of a leaky faucet. The tenant, who fears retribution if his real name is used, has lived on the property several years. He is Latino, like virtually every renter on this property. Francisco, as he'll be identified in this article, works seasonally and returns home to southern Mexico when he can to visit his wife and children.

The kitchenette is attached to a small, drab room that serves as bedroom, dining room and living room. This is what Francisco calls home--with five other men. For this, they pay $600 a month. As we talk, two other men are sitting on the bed watching a Spanish video. Another is curled up in his sleeping bag on the floor trying to sleep through the blaring TV.

Francisco is pleased that the rent has recently dropped from $620, what they were paying to the Goodens when seven people were living in this roughly 10-foot-by-10-foot room. According to Garner, the city ordinance requires a larger bedroom space for two people.

Next door, a family pays $390 for one room, a shower and a toilet. Charlotte Gooden explains that she collects rents from both Francisco's place and the family's, but they are really one unit because they share a common kitchen. Both Francisco and the mother next door laugh at this idea. There is a connecting door between the two units, but it is kept locked and a couch is pushed up against it.

Celia--also not her real name--explains that when the city inspectors plan to visit, they must give the Goodens 24 hours notice. The Goodens notify the tenants, who unlock the door and--if they, like Celia, have no kitchen--hide their hot plate and dishes in boxes conveniently supplied by the Goodens. Explains Celia, "I put hairbrushes and other bathroom stuff around the sink to make it look authentic."

Celia admits that she has been coached by the Goodens to tell inspectors she has free use of the kitchen next door.

Not too long ago, the tenants on the other side of Celia were arrested and taken away for cooking speed--or maybe it was crack, she's not sure. "You could smell them cooking it--it made us dizzy. You could hear the knocking [of drug buyers] all night," she recalls. Celia worries about raising her son in this environment. As we talk, her 7-year-old romps on a bed that takes up most of the room, proudly showing off his Power Rangers Halloween costume. Already, she says, he is headed for trouble. "The kids he hangs out with--everything they see, they steal," she sighs.

The stress of living in this environment is beginning to take its toll. Stomach aches, headaches and panic attacks drove Celia to seek out the help of a curandera--a faith healer--who diagnosed Celia's difficulties as bad spirits that had invaded her body. "We keep saying, 'Let's go somewhere else,' " Celia says. "But we know it's just going to be more rent and more money." Instead, they will stay here with the cucarachas--the cockroaches--that, as we talk, edge up the wall to join the conversation.

By the time we get ready to leave, it is nearing 10pm. Walking through the courtyard the investigator points to a dark niche between cottages where small packages furtively change hands between young Latinos. Across the way, an entrepreneurial woman has set up her nightly card table to sell $2 sandwiches from a toaster oven, providing dinner for the tenants who do not own even a hot plate.

Walking through the back alley, the smell of human feces mingles with the odor of beer being downed with enthusiasm by another group of men standing by a doorway. We reach the sidewalk tagged with gang slogans and numbers and head home for the evening.

A Vague and Faceless Entity

Celia isn't the only one on the edge of breaking--the neighbors surrounding 350 Ocean have also had enough. Ray Arneson has lived across the street for more than seven years. "In the last three years there's been about a dozen drive-by shootings," he reports. "From 8pm until about four in the morning, there's at least a dozen guys out there every night whistling, doing catcalls, throwing bottles at passing cars--you just can't sleep anymore."

Arneson has witnessed the chronic drug dealing and parade of prostitutes that either enter the units or use the back alley to conduct business. He says he once counted 23 cars enter and leave in the space of an hour and a half. Now, he is joining forces with NOLO to see that the Goodens take some responsibility for their property.

Organized by Erick Larsen, a local resident and director of the nearby Resource Center for Nonviolence, NOLO already has forced changes in another troubled property on nearby Canfield Street by suing its owner for $75,000. Using a novel and highly effective process invented by an organization called Safe Streets Now, the neighbors will each file against the Goodens in small claims court for the maximum of $5,000 if their demands are not met, a move which could potentially cost the property owners as much as $50,000.

Besides the Santa Cruz property, the Goodens also own an 18-unit apartment complex in Modesto, as well as another complex outside of Dallas.

Reached by phone in Texas, Charlotte Gooden says she was unaware of the pending action by NOLO. "We actually thought it was getting better," she says, referring to the problems at her Ocean Street property. She says she is familiar with NOLO and has been invited several times by organizers to join. Like most landlords contacted for this article, Gooden blames what troubles she will acknowledge on that vague and faceless entity, "the neighborhood."

"We did have some graffiti problems," she admits. "We don't know of anyone down there who takes drugs, though. We do not condone drugs."

Contacted a few days later, however, Gooden is a bit more forthcoming. "I have a couple of tenants who are bringing in the wrong elements, so I'm giving them 30 days' notice." She adds, "I'm not perfect, maybe I should have acted sooner. Maybe part of the problem is social," Gooden adds. "I don't know if the unemployment is bad, but when people are not working they get into trouble."

As for the extraordinary amount of police calls, Gooden says, "We had a lady who lived across the street who called the police every evening. I bet you'll find that 90 percent of the calls came from one household."

As far as the code violations, Gooden says, "You always have problems keeping stuff up to code, but we haven't had any real problems that I know of."

That would be news to city code inspector Linda Garner and assistant city attorney Tony Condotti. "There were several violations," Condotti says. "There were various building and maintenance issues [such as] electrical and plumbing problems."

The city filed a criminal complaint in 1993 about the number of units being used, and the Goodens requested a hearing. Several tenants spoke in defense of the Goodens. Yet Francisco admitted that they were promised there would be no rent increase if they spoke favorably at the hearing.

Although that lawsuit was settled out of court, Condotti notes, "We have received complaints since then and code enforcement is proceeding."

Gooden believes that NOLO is unfairly singling out her property, just as code enforcement has done. Recently, Gooden says, she contacted the California State Community Standards and Codes in Sacramento, complaining of heavy spot enforcement at her property. Gooden says she took her camcorder and recorded what she believes were worse violations at other nearby properties, then sent the evidence to both the grand jury and Housing and Urban Development in Washington, D.C. She says she received a letter from HUD stating that her complaint had been forwarded to the city of Santa Cruz along with a letter notifying the city that it had 10 days to respond to Gooden's complaint. Gooden says that although she began this in September, she has heard nothing from the city.


Photo by Erin N. Calmes

Broom With a View: Sue Jessen, property manager of 350 Ocean, argues that she and her mother, owner Charlotte Gooden, have been unfairly targeted by city officials and police for problems in the neighborhood.

Smokescreens of Do-Goodism

Gooden's daughter and a manager of the Ocean Street property, Sue Jessen, goes so far as to wonder if those who question her mother's rental practices might have some racist motivations. Like her mother, Jessen seems to have difficulty recalling any contact by either city officials or neighbors regarding the problems endemic to the property, except for a letter they received from the County Narcotic Enforcement Team about a year ago.

As Jessen recalls, "The letter told us we needed to get rid of those people and we should rent to other people [her emphasis]. I read that to mean, 'Get rid of the Mexicans and rent to white people.' " As far as she's concerned, when the city made her mother take down the dozen units after the court case, "officials took away 12 units of low-income housing."

But City Councilmember Jane Yokayama, who is familiar with the Goodens' property, believes that property owners like the Goodens are merely hiding behind a smokescreen of do-goodism. "It doesn't help to exploit people and put their lives in danger under the guise of providing a roof over their head," Yokayama says. Exploitation may be the operative word here. Figuring an average rent of $500 per unit, based on the two known rental rates of $600 and $395, a little back-of-the-envelope figuring would place the Goodens' income from 24 units at somewhere around $12,000 a month or almost $150,000 a year--not a bad return on their original 1974 investment of what Gooden claims was about $400,000.

But either Charlotte Gooden and Sue Jessen are living a classic case of denial or they are dangerously removed from the realities of 350 Ocean. "They rent from us and we take care of them," remarks Gooden of her tenants. "Most of them are very good. It's a real family atmosphere down there."

Not far down the street from the Goodens' property sits another dilapidated row of cottages that recently gained its 15 minutes of fame. Earlier this year, a child was discovered turning tricks out of the Sleep Tight Motel. Newspaper accounts allege that the 13-year-old was given drugs and forced to sell her body by an older woman who rented one of property owner Jerry Eidem's dwellings.

A retired Harbor High math teacher, Eidem has built up a sizable portfolio acquiring properties like the Sleep Tight Motel, Hidden Court around the corner on Barson Street, and the Sunny Cove motel on East Cliff Drive near 17th Avenue. Both he and wife Nancy are active in Santa Cruz charitable organizations, especially the sister cities program, whose mission has taken them to Nicaragua and Ukraine. Although he shies from the term "progressive," he admits to a liberal bent in his politics.

Eidem rents from week to week to those who need it. He doesn't ask for references or credit checks. He works around people's SSI payments, AFDC payments or motel vouchers from relief organizations. The average rent runs about $175 a week with $100 deposit for a furnished studio or one bedroom and a kitchen no bigger than a walk-in closet.

Eidem is busily cleaning one of the units whose tenants split in the middle of the night while he talks about the difficulties he faces. Mold trails up and around the dilapidated shower stall and broken tiles, and a mottled refrigerator slowly defrosts into pails and buckets. "It's not the best housing," Eidem admits, "but in our free market system, not everyone can have the same housing. And I rent furnished, with all the amenities including cable TV."

The furnishings in this particular dwelling include a worn, stained mattress, an ancient veneer-peeled dresser with a drawer missing, and a TV with a coat hanger for its antenna. Like 350 Ocean, the small rooms were built to accommodate overnight visitors back in the 1920s, not families of two, three and more on an ongoing basis.

Tenants who stay longer than a month are expected to come up with anywhere from $400 to $1000 deposit. "People who end up coming here are usually on their way to being homeless or on their way from being homeless," Eidem says. "Places like ours give some people another chance. If I switched over to monthly rents only, it would be way less problems, but it would be like kicking the homeless out. Besides there's a big demand for this." And, he adds, he also makes a little more money this way.

Sorting Out The Victims

Eidem's manager, Marge Pilgrim, joins him to help clean the unit. As far as she's concerned, you couldn't ask for a better landlord. "He works closely with us and comes right over to help us if something needs fixing. The problem is," Pilgrim surmises, "Jerry has too soft a heart to say no to some people who probably shouldn't be living here. [Sleep Tight] has a bad reputation, but we try to interview tenants. We try to keep it clean and family-oriented."

Like 350 Ocean, the Sleep Tight has racked up an inordinate amount of police activity--62 calls in one year. "Sometimes we are the ones to place the call," Pilgrim says. "I don't think we should be criticized for calling the police."

One of the gripes neighbors and the police department have with the Sleep Tight Motel is a throughway on its property that connects the parallel-running Bixby Street with Ocean Street. It allows easy access and escape for drug dealers and prostitutes. Eidem insists he has tried to put up barriers, but they are only torn down again.

Asked how he responds to charges that he is a slumlord, Eidem pauses for a moment, looking noticeably hurt. "We're the victims as much as anyone," he says, then gestures to the rundown cottage. "Nobody likes their place torn apart."

Contacted a week later, the question is still on Eidem's mind. "You asked me what I thought of being called a slumlord," he says. "Is that someone who has low-income rentals for people in need? Somebody has to furnish housing for these people, and not everyone can have equal housing."

But isn't $700 to $800 a month a little steep for these accommodations? "They have cable, color TV and towels," Eidem says. "They have everything they need as long they're there. I charge a fair market rate."

Pilgrim is not alone in her appreciation of Eidem, though for others it comes with mixed emotions. One tenant, who decried the legions of cockroaches she had to live with, admits that Eidem has been her bridge from the streets. She knows he charges too much for such shabby conditions, but he's one of the few property owners in town who would let her in with no references and also allow her to pay weekly. "The problem isn't Eidem," she says. "Something's gotta be done about rents in the rest of Santa Cruz. Where the hell am I going to get first, last and deposit? I'm not some little UC student with rich parents in Orange County."

This woman has put her finger on the Gordian knot that entwines both landlords and tenants. She and her child have been on the Housing Authority's waiting list for Section 8, or subsidized housing, for almost a decade. And, adds Housing Authority's Mary James, the wait is only going to get longer if Washington continues its present slash-and-burn policies with social and welfare programs.

As rents continue to skyrocket in Santa Cruz, as neighborhoods continue to fight low-income housing, and as living wages continue to lose their race against living expenses, one thing is certain: people like Jerry Eidem, Charlotte Gooden and Sue Jessen will always be in business.

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