A Blighted Block’s Hope Now Tested

After years of living in perhaps the most blighted housing in Orange County, residents of the Minnie Street apartments in Santa Ana enjoyed a surge of optimism when the city began renovating the buildings’ exteriors a few weeks ago.

Construction crews launched a $5-million restoration project to give 46 buildings in the 1100 block of South Minnie Street a modern facade and landscaping. The city is paying for the exterior renovation, and the building owners have until 2004 to do interior repairs.

But tenants now fear that their hopes for decent and affordable housing will evaporate because an immigrant rights group is suing the city to stop the project, charging that Santa Ana Mayor Miguel A. Pulido failed to disclose his business ties with Kris Kakkar, a project owner who stands to make millions from the renovation of 127 of those units when he sells them.

Pulido and Kakkar are partners in two Garden Grove real estate ventures.

“We live in deplorable conditions and finally have a chance to stabilize our lives,” said Victoria Zaragoza, leader of a Minnie Street tenants’ association. “We’re on the brink of a better life for all of us. But now, everything is uncertain.”

Zaragoza has lived on Minnie Street for 28 years and worked for more than a decade to bring the city and property owners together to redevelop the area. A private, volunteer learning center was also opened there, with advice and encouragement from the Santa Ana school district.

Now, she says, the predominantly Latino population on South Minnie Street has been dragged into a political dispute between Pulido and Hermandad Mexicana Nacional, the organization that filed the lawsuit.

“I don’t know what Hermandad’s fight with Pulido is all about,” she said. “But leave us out of it. If they hold up the project, people will continue living in a horrible way.”

The lawsuit has not gone to court yet and construction on the project--called Cornerstone Village--continues.

Pulido and Hermandad Director Nativo Lopez, a Santa Ana school trustee, have sparred politically for years. Lopez and other critics say Pulido has not done enough for the city’s Latinos, who make up 70% of the city’s population. Pulido says he is the mayor of all residents, not just Latinos.

The issue is further complicated by Hermandad’s suspicions that after the units are renovated, undocumented residents will not be allowed to live in them, and that property owners will limit the number of people allowed to live in each apartment, displacing families.

The Minnie Street apartments, home to many undocumented immigrants, are among the most densely populated in the county. An estimated 3,500 people live in 527 units, the majority of which are one-bedroom apartments.

But Santa Ana housing manager Patricia Whitaker and officials from Orange Housing Corp., a nonprofit agency that owns 60 units on Minnie Street, said that nobody will be displaced and that owners do not require proof of legal residency from tenants. Orange Housing has already renovated 40 units--four years ahead of schedule--and is fixing its other 20.

“We haven’t evicted any of our tenants and didn’t raise rents after renovating the units. Ours is a long-term investment. Our only goal is to make these units a nice, affordable place to live. Our residents are the working poor,” said Barry Cottle, an Orange Housing officer.

Although no residents will be displaced by the project regardless of how many live in a unit, officials said that when apartments become vacant, occupancy will be limited to five new tenants in a one-bedroom unit and six in a two-bedroom.

Orange Housing’s renovated buildings at 1121 and 1125 S. Minnie St. are the envy of other residents. A recent tour found tenants with pride of ownership in their new homes and families of up to seven people living in spotless one-bedroom units.

A woman who asked to be identified only as Alejandra said she’s lived in the same apartment for 10 years. She lives there with her husband and her five daughters, ages 3 to 18.

“The previous owner never did any repairs. We lived in terrible conditions, but we couldn’t afford to move. I was afraid that after the new owners fixed our home they would raise our rent. But that didn’t happen,” she said.

Cottle said he knows undocumented immigrants live in his units. “Immigration isn’t our issue. Our issue is affordable housing,” he said.

Lopez said he is not convinced that undocumented residents won’t be forced out. “There’s a reason why the new owners are requiring tenants to sign new contracts and provide check stubs and Social Security numbers. They want to ensure that they are not undocumented.”

But Whitaker was adamant that proof of legal residency will not be required. She and Cottle said check stubs are needed only to satisfy legal requirements that people qualify for low-income housing.

“We’re sure nobody will have a problem qualifying,” Whitaker said. “Why would anyone live there now if they weren’t poor? And we can’t shout it from the rooftop, but we aren’t going to ask for immigration documents. We know many are here illegally. And we also know that they are decent, hard-working people.”

Santa Ana hopes to make the Minnie Street redevelopment a model for other cities, especially for communities “with larger families living in single units,” she said.

“It took years for the city and property owners to come together. Changes are starting to happen on Minnie Street,” Whitaker said.

City officials estimated that there are about 15 property owners who formed the Cornerstone Village Owners Assn. Cottle said each owner agreed to pay $15 per unit, per month to cover landscaping, janitorial, security and other costs when the project is completed.

Only one owner refused to participate in the city-financed exterior renovation. Work crews bypassed her two buildings.

Among the other owners, those who do not finish interior renovations by 2004 will have liens placed on their properties equal to the city’s costs for fixing the exteriors.

Ironically, Zaragoza, whom city officials and property owners credit for making the redevelopment program possible, lives in one of the two buildings that will not be rehabilitated.

But she is not discouraged.

“I fought very hard for this project because nobody was coming out to help us. But eventually the city, school district, property owners and the tenants joined together,” she said. “We want to show the world that those of us who live here are responsible and care about our community.”