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Thread ID: 18733 | Posts: 3 | Started: 2005-06-20
2005-06-20 15:12 | User Profile
Atlanta Journal-Constitution
ajc.com > Metro > Cobb Full house tests Cobb law
By RICHARD WHITT The Atlanta Journal-Constitution Published on: 06/20/05
Manuel Flores rents a house in a tidy south Cobb neighborhood, where he lives with his wife, five children, two cousins and the mother of a cousin ââ¬â 10 people in a three-bedroom, one-bath home.
The cousins occupy makeshift bedrooms in the basement. More family members ââ¬â up to 10 ââ¬â visit often, Flores said, and that has caused tension in his neighborhood.
Flores said neighbors have complained about the number of people at the house, cars parked in front and the number of children playing in the yard.
One of those neighbors is Catalina Erneston. She is angry at what she sees as a rooming house in her neighborhood. She believes as many as 20 people are living there, and has gone before the Cobb County Commission twice to complain about noisy outdoor parties and cars parked on the lawn or blocking the street.
"When are you going to do something about it?" said Erneston, who immigrated to the United States from Peru 30 years ago. "I never thought I'd have to live with these conditions. This is Cobb County."
Cobb officials are using Flores' home ââ¬â 492 Alcott Drive in the Concord Park neighborhood ââ¬â as a first test case for a new ordinance passed by the County Commission in January.
Earlier this month Cobb issued a citation against Jose Cruz Rodriguez, the owner of the Alcott Drive house, for violating the new "multifamily use" ordinance. If found guilty, Rodriguez could face a fine of $100 to $1,000. He told officers he is not guilty and will challenge the citation in court Thursday.
The law, patterned after those in the city of Atlanta and Gwinnett County, requires at least 50 square feet of sleeping space per person, excluding hallways, kitchen, storage and utility areas. Property records list Rodriguez's house as having 1,129 square feet, not counting the basement.
Atlanta's law requires a minimum gross floor space of 150 square feet for the first occupant and 100 square feet for each additional occupant.
Cobb officials said they are hearing complaints similar to Erneston's from residents of neighborhoods where houses have become rental property, often occupied by immigrant laborers, their extended families and friends.
It's a situation that has been cropping up in cities across the country for decades, but now the new arrivals, mostly Hispanic, are drawn to some of Atlanta's suburbs for the same reason earlier immigrants were drawn to apartments in cities ââ¬â that's where they can find work.
They can change the character and culture of suburban neighborhoods where they have settled.
Earlier this year in New York, Nassau County officials began a crackdown on landlords who are turning houses into illegal apartments. Hempstead Town Supervisor Kate Murray called the problem a "scourge" on neighborhoods in Long Island, not far from New York City, according to an article in the New York Daily News.
Nassau District Attorney Denis Dillon said his prosecutors will provide legal and investigative assistance to short-staffed town attorneys to go after some of the most egregious offenders, the Daily News reported.
Cobb County code enforcement officers had been working under an old ordinance that had no limits on the number of people living in a house, as long as they were related.
"There were 11 or 12 people living in a home and the guy said, 'This is my sister-in-law and three nephews in addition to my wife and three kids,' " said Rob Hosack, who oversees code enforcement in Cobb. "Our investigator would close out the case."
Cobb Commission Chairman Sam Olens said landlords cited under the old ordinance were claiming they weren't multifamily dwellings unless there was a lock on each bedroom door.
"They were trying to skirt the law," he said. "It was a fallacious argument."
The new occupancy limit, based on the amount of sleeping space, is an attempt to address that issue, he said, no matter if the residents are related or not.
Olens said the law "absolutely was not" aimed at any ethnic group. The problem actually preceded the arrival of large numbers of Hispanics in Cobb, he said.
But Cobb's Hispanic population has increased more than sixfold in just over a decade, and as the immigrant population grows, so too do instances of what code enforcement officials refer to as "cultural conflicts."
Hosack said he gets about five complaints a month, but did not have statistics of how many citations or fines were handed out under the old ordinance.
"Ninety-five percent of the complaints I get are white folks complaining about Hispanic folks," he said. "Three years ago, it was not a problem."
Cobb Commissioner Annette Kesting, who represents south Cobb, said she gets complaints from residents nearly every day.
Since March 21, Kesting said, she has logged 143 calls complaining of overcrowding in homes and apartments.
Discrimination charges
Josh Hopkins of the Atlanta Latin American Association said he does not think occupancy limits single out Hispanics. "I just think it's something that protects everyone," he said. "All of these laws help ensure equitable housing and safe environments for families and children, and I don't think it's for anything other than health and safety for residents."
But others, including the U.S. Justice Department, have taken issue with such laws, said Rob Paral, a research fellow with the American Immigration Law Foundation, an immigrant advocacy group.
Paral said the Chicago suburb of Cicero, Ill., was forced to rescind home occupancy limits in 1993 when the Justice Department sued, accusing the city of discrimination against Hispanics who tend to have larger families.
Many new immigrants arriving in Atlanta don't earn enough to rent a home, said Dario Lizcano, an official with Affordable Residential Communities Inc. "These people basically have to team up when they arrive," Lizcano said.
A nation of immigrants, Americans have nevertheless struggled to absorb each new wave of people from other countries. Immigration advocates compare the current wave of Hispanics to the Irish immigrants of a century ago.
Unlike previous generations of immigrants who mainly settled in cities, Hispanics are moving to suburban areas, according a study by the Brookings Institution, a nonpartisan Washington-based think tank. Once settled, they often send for other family members.
Atlanta's suburbs are emerging as a new "gateway for arriving immigrants," said Brookings researcher Audrey Singer, who has studied immigrant housing patterns. "This has been a way for the newest immigrants to consolidate their housing resources."
Hispanics make up nearly 10 percent of Cobb's 642,000 residents, according to 2003 census estimates. Mexican natives account for 33,542 of the 60,445 who identify themselves as Hispanic or Latino.
The 1990 census counted 9,403 Hispanics including 3,769 Mexicans.
Cobb's new law is patterned after a Gwinnett ordinance that went into effect in 1999 and has been somewhat successful, said code enforcement supervisor Andy Mendzef.
"We're making a dent in it [overcrowding]," Mendzef said. "Maybe not as much as some people would like."
Mendzef said a warning letter often is enough to cause occupants to move on to another house, but if a case goes to court, the county uses water usage bills and testimony of neighbors as evidence.
The number of complaints and citations in Gwinnett has declined in the past couple of years. Mendzef said his agency received 303 complaints and issued 24 citations in 2003, compared with 208 complaints and nine citations last year.
So far in 2005 there have been 61 complaints and two citations, he said. The penalties are fines of $150 to $1,000 per day and up to 60 days in jail. Mendzef couldn't recall anyone getting a jail sentence.
Mendzef said he has not gotten any complaints from Hispanic groups about enforcing the law.
Cobb's ordinance affects only unincorporated parts of the county. Marietta's effort to crack down on safety and occupancy problems in its rental housing was overturned by the state Legislature, which passed a law in 2003 forbidding municipalities from allowing housing inspectors on a property unless they get a complaint from an occupant or a violation is clearly visible.
The law was advanced by associations representing Realtors and apartment owners in the final hours of the legislative session. State Sen. Steve Thompson (D-Powder Springs), who offered it as an amendment to a zoning redevelopment bill, said he was concerned about the privacy of tenants and the rights of landlords.
The Metropolitan Atlanta Mayors Association, made up of 19 mayors in the metro area, immediately labeled it a "slumlord law."
In response to the state law, Marietta and Roswell in Fulton County passed ordinances in 2004 requiring owners to inspect their own rental units, and to have a building inspector certify they meet minimum codes. Both laws have been challenged in court.
Marietta, where two-thirds of the population live in rental units, has been effectively prevented from using its ordinance. Roswell settled its suit with apartment owners and is enforcing a new version of the ordinance. Marietta's case is pending.
Tour of the home
Manuel Flores answered the door at 492 Alcott Drive, next to Catalina Erneston's home in Concord Park, and allowed reporters and a photographer inside.
County tax records show the house as having two bedrooms, but Flores, who came to the United States from Mexico City about a year ago and works construction as a day laborer, led a tour of the home, revealing that it actually has three bedrooms on the main floor and three rooms partitioned off in the basement.
Mattresses are laid on the concrete floor in the basement, and a hot plate is available for cooking, but there is no bathroom.
Erneston, who has lived next door for 16 years, said the situation with her neighbors has become intolerable. At one time, she said, they had seven vehicles parked on the lawn, and another neighbor built a fence to prevent them from driving across his lawn. There have been loud parties with men drinking beer outside, she said.
"I told George [her husband] I didn't come from Peru to see this," Erneston said. "I came for a better life. I don't have anything against being poor, but that's a little too close."
Erneston's neighbors, Alva Johnson and Toni Bryant, agree.
They said they saw as many as 15 men being picked up at the home one morning.
"There's 10 to 12 kids there every day," Bryant said.
Johnson, 71, and Bryant, 68, have lived in the neighborhood since 1965 and are worried their property values are declining.
"We're too old to move," Bryant said, "and I don't want to start over."
Staff writer Brenden Sager contributed to this article. [url]http://www.ajc.com/metro/content/metro/cobb/0605/20cobbhousing.html[/url] ======================== The reporter just couldn't bring himself to use the word "illegal", even though he damn well knows these are illegals.
2005-06-20 15:22 | User Profile
The picture in the paper shows three anchor babies, ranging in age from two to nine months. Atlanta is becoming an East Coast version of LA.
2005-06-20 15:29 | User Profile
ST,
Too bad they removed the image of the frontpage. That's quite a photograph. I'm remember back in 1979 the "Reverend" Lowery of the SCLC declared Atlanta to be "capitol of the third world." Looks like for once he was right about something.
I like Terry Anderson's name for them: Jackpot babies.