Early Check-Out Time

The housing crunch for low-income Anaheim residents just got a little tighter.

As part of a concerted campaign to clean up blighted motels in west Anaheim, the City Council late Tuesday severely restricted the length of time people can stay in the Lincoln Inn on West Lincoln Avenue, near Dale Street.

The decision, part of stepped-up restrictions on motel operations, parallels a recent move by the Buena Park City Council to tighten a local ordinance aimed at barring people from setting up long-term residency in motels.

The wave of actions drew a sharp rebuke from at least one advocate for the poor, who argued that local officials’ past failure to plan for low-income housing helped force the poor into motels in the first place.

“It’s a real crying shame,” said Allen Baldwin, executive director of the private, nonprofit Orange County Community Housing Corp. “It is a terrible community response to a problem that they in essence have been partially responsible for creating.”

Anaheim Mayor Tom Daly and the city manager’s office did not return telephone calls seeking comment.

The council vote comes as average Orange County apartment rents have exceeded $1,000 a month, an all-time high, spotlighting the shortage of low-income housing in one of the most expensive housing markets in the nation.

An Orange County census of the homeless last year found 14,086 people living on the streets or in temporary housing--including motels--countywide. That marked an 18% increase over 1998. As a result, four low-income renters compete for each low-cost apartment in the county, the worst such ratio in metropolitan areas nationwide, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a Washington, D.C.-based advocacy group.

The actions by Anaheim officials are part of a stepped-up campaign to clean up more than two dozen west Anaheim motels that have become ersatz low-income apartment buildings, said Roger Bennion, the city’s code enforcement supervisor.

Initially, the city amended long-standing use permits--some dating to the 1960s--to limit motel stays to 30 days. But guests simply checked out for a day, then returned to the same room where they had left their belongings.

On Wednesday, the Lincoln Inn--recently renamed from the Seville Inn--was hit with new, tougher rules limiting tenancy to 30 days over any 90-day period. City officials warned they likely will take similar steps against other motels whose owners fail to limit long-term residency on their own.

While city officials say the changes will help cut crime and gang problems at the 129-unit motel, owner Ben Karmelich Jr. said the new restrictions will force longtime tenants out of their homes, damage his business and make it more difficult for him to improve the property.

Karmelich sold the property in July 1996 but took it back over about six months ago. He said he has invested about $125,000 trying to renovate the three-story building, which had been cited for repeated city code violations, including deteriorating walls and ceilings, broken windows and inoperable vehicles parked outside.

“It will be an incredible hardship for the tenants,” Karmelich said Wednesday, estimating that people will be forced from 60 of the 70 rooms currently rented out. “They’ll be forced to move from motel to motel. For me, it’s an incredible financial hardship.”

But Anaheim Police Officer Happy Medina, one of two officers assigned exclusively to the motel, argued that legal restrictions on length of residency are needed.

He told the City Council that crime at the motel had dropped in recent months and that Karmelich had evicted many tenants involved in gangs, drugs and prostitution. Still, he said, the Lincoln Inn’s long-running problems outweigh the recent improvements.

“If [Karmelich] sells it tomorrow we could be back to square one,” Medina said.

Deborah Harpole, 50, moved into the motel nine months ago, part of a slide that began more than a year earlier when she lost her marriage, her mother and her job. A friend offered her a place to stay, but that didn’t work out.

She and another friend, who is terminally ill with cancer, decided to share a room on their combined $700 monthly income, and wound up at the Lincoln Inn unaware of its reputation.

“The police were here every time I looked out the window,” Harpole said, adding that conditions improved after Karmelich took over. Landscaping has been added, the rooms have been painted and refurbished, and she no longer fears going outside at night.

“I guess we’ll have to go get a motel room somewhere around here. That’s all we can do, other than living in our car.”

Erica Kepler, 35, moved into the motel seven years ago while unemployed. Since then, she’s landed a part-time job at Disneyland and now works nearly 40 hours a week. She believes she’ll be able to afford to move into an apartment.

“If I ever lost my job . . . I would like to be able to come back into a place like this so I’m not in the street or living in a car,” Kepler said.