Renters at Santa Rosa apartment complex struggle to find housing one month after fire

Despite recent efforts by local groups to provide support and temporary shelter for the nearly 80 residents who were displaced by an April 4 fire at the Nueva Vista apartment complex in Santa Rosa, many of the renters said they are still shuffling between hotels, living out of cars and staying with family and friends.

“I keep all my stuff in the trunk of my car,” said Nancy Settles, 51, a displaced tenant who lived at Nueva Vista for over ?10 years. “My clothes just stay in a laundry basket that I take with me from place to place and that’s pretty much all I have.”

Legal Aid of Sonoma County and the California Rural Legal Assistance in Santa Rosa are now working with tenants to advise them of their rights. But limited resources have hampered the groups from being able to represent the tenants in a larger capacity, said Evan Livingstone, a housing and outreach attorney with Legal Aid.

The tenants’ ongoing struggles come a month after the fire sparked a back-and-forth series of letters involving the affected residents, the city, outside legal groups and a representative of the owners.

The dispute centers on who is responsible for paying for temporary housing, what is to become of the personal property left on the site and when, if ever, residents can move back in.

Few have been able to find longterm living quarters in the tight local housing market, and dozens of tenants have said they have felt largely abandoned in their search for a new home.

The city has yet to release results stemming from an investigation that could determine whether the property owners, Dennis Lanterman and Tom Levison, are responsible to pay for the tenants’ relocation. Those costs, which are mainly hotel fees, are currently being covered by Catholic Charities of Santa Rosa through the city’s rapid rehousing fund.

“Our legal team has been investigating to determine if there was significant contributions (to the fire) caused by the property owners,” said city spokeswoman Adriane Mertens. The 54-year-old complex lacked a sprinkler system - a vulnerability that made the property known to firefighters.

The owners as of Friday had not responded to an April 16 letter from the city saying that the owners are responsible to pay for relocation benefits until the city’s investigation is complete, Mertens said.

Owners Lanterman and Levison, as well as their attorney Robert Young, did not respond this week to multiple requests for comment.

“In general, when tenants are ordered to vacate a building, landlords are supposed to provide relocation benefits. So I am not sure what grounds the landlords have used to decline to pay for that,” said CRLA attorney Shane Crary-Ross. The organization works to provide low-income communities throughout the state with access to legal advice.

Catholic Charities since May 1 has provided eight Nueva Vista households with hotel rooms across Santa Rosa and has relocated four tenants into permanent housing.

Hotel stays for those tenants over the past two weeks have cost roughly $5,000 out of the city’s rapid rehousing fund, said Jennielynn Holmes, director of shelter and housing for Catholic Charities of Santa Rosa.

The rest of the tenants reported to Catholic Charities that they are temporarily staying with family and friends.

“We are also working with all of them to find short- and long-term housing,” she said.

But displaced Nueva Vista residents including Settles, Renee Priolo and Patrick Patton said they are still primarily living out of their cars, couch surfing or moving between hotels.

Their frustration is mounting daily.

“As of right now my girlfriend and I are staying at a friend’s house in Rohnert Park,” said Patton, who lived eight years on the third floor of the north building that burned last month. His girlfriend lived on the second floor, where the fire originated.

He said he had reached out to both the owners and Catholic Charities and had yet to hear back.

Holmes said case managers from Catholic Charities are trying to stay in contact with all tenants, but that it has been increasingly difficult because everyone is spread across the county in different living situations.

“Some people lost their phones and have gotten new numbers, which makes it hard to keep in touch with them as well,” Holmes said. “But we have made it clear people can come to us at any time with any need because we are working as an advocate on behalf of these tenants.”

The Nueva Vista Apartment complex just north of Coddingtown Mall was built in 1965 and has two buildings, housing a total of around 160 tenants. Fire officials determined that the fire in the north building started in an entertainment system owned by a tenant on the second floor. The flames caused extensive smoke damage to the building, rendering it uninhabitable by order of the city’s code enforcement authorities.

In total, the fire caused around $500,000 in damage, according to fire officials, and no timeline has been reported for renovations. The south building was not damaged.

Displaced tenants were put up for 10 days at the Flamingo Hotel in Santa Rosa - stays paid for by Lanterman, according to the city - and tenants were told there would be plans in place for more permanent housing options.

Fire officials on April 5 deemed the fire was caused by a tenant, and not the owners. Citing that conclusion, Young, the attorney for the owners, said in a letter to Legal Aid that his clients were not responsible for covering additional relocation benefits.

“Based on the information we have so far, we see no reason why our client(s) would be liable for any tenant relocation benefits,” Young wrote in an April 22 letter to Livingston of Legal Aid obtained by The Press Democrat.

Livingstone said so far they are working on behalf of two tenants.

Crary-Ross from CRLA also has been advising a handful of renters including Settles, sending letters to the Nueva Vista owners demanding relocation benefits be paid by May 10 under threat of legal action.

The letters request relocation benefits of two times the area’s fair market rent. For Settles that means she would be entitled to $2,894 a month, as well as fees related to personal property damage.

“We have such a small staff that all we are capable of doing is making sure that the tenants know their rights and I understand that the city is trying to fill the other gaps,” Crary-Ross said. “I just wish there were more services for these folks.”

Settles said her April 25 letter has not prompted a response from the Nueva Vista owners.

Amid the regionwide housing shortage, displaced tenants face the difficult prospect of finding affordable places to live.

“I would imagine the reason these tenants are still displaced has to do with the tightness of the housing market and the lack of availability of affordable housing, which is making this tough,” Crary-Ross said.

Settles spends much of her days reviewing a Catholic Charities housing guide that lists potential housing options in Santa Rosa.

She has started calling them daily, but most places have asked her for first and last month’s rent in addition to a security deposit, which she said she can’t afford.

“I feel like I am going to be living out of hotels for over a year at this rate, waiting for my old apartment to get renovated so I can move back in,” she said. “I still see that as home.”

You can reach Staff Writer Alexandria Bordas at 707-521-5337 or alexandria.bordas@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @CrossingBordas.