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From: Julie Balovich
email: mailto: jbalovich@bettzedek.org
link: http://
date:
Date: 1/24/01
Time: 7:10:07 PM
Remote Name: 216.36.84.11
I've been a staff attorney at a legal services agency in LA for four months and the certificate to voucher conversion is by far the biggest problem I've encountered. The only strategy that we have been using with any success is to argue that the landlord has to give 90 days notice under a California law (Civil Code 1954.35) which provides that landlords renting to tenants receiving government subsidies must give 90 days notice before terminating or failing to renew the government contract. This argument has been somewhat successful here, but we understand from colleagues in Northern California that the judges won't apply it to non rent control areas. The argument is also vulnerable because it could be argued that technically the LL isn't failing to renew a certificate contract; rather he or she is deciding not to enter a voucher contract.
None of this addresses your underlying point--which is that this whole situation leaves our clients shopping their vouchers out in one of the worst tenant's markets in the country. We are meeting with the local PHA in a couple of weeks to talk about the conversion process and hopefully exactly these issues.