CONCORD — As her middle school peers worry about things like class and homework, 7th-grader Nevaeh Chappell has saddled herself with a graver responsibility — helping her family find a new place to live.
When she’s not at basketball practice or painting her nails, the 12-year-old looks for apartments online as she and her mother count the days left on their 60-day notice to vacate their Concord home of seven years, so the new landlord can make necessary improvements that will ultimately lead to higher rents.
“It’s just sad that my daughter is worrying about a situation that she shouldn’t have to at 12,” her mother, 32-year-old Crystal Chandler, said through tears. “She’s just like, ‘where are we going to go, what are we going to do, Mom?'”
Chandler and her daughter are among more than two dozen families that must move out of the Parkside Gardens apartment complex by the end of October as the building’s new owner, PTLA Real Estate Group, prepares to renovate the property.
The owner says the renovations, which will cost more than $1 million and include fixing the roof, reinforcing the walls and replacing an overhang plagued with dry rot, are required by the city and will improve tenants’ quality of life.
Once the fixes are complete, possibly in as little as 60 days after construction begins, the old tenants can move back — albeit at higher rents. But the disruption is causing panic among some of the displaced families, who are desperately trying to find new homes they can afford in the region’s cut-throat rental market. It’s a saga playing out in similar forms all over the Bay Area, with struggling families on one side, and the economics of a red-hot housing market on the other.
“It’s definitely pushing a lot of families out,” said Eduardo Torres, regional organizer with Tenants Together, who has been working with some Parkside Gardens residents. “Concord used to be considered an affordable community, and now you’re starting to see a lot of families forced out and paying huge amounts of rent.”
Torres is organizing some of the Parkside Gardens tenants to fight back, and a group of them planned to speak at Tuesday evening’s City Council meeting.
“We’re hoping to pressure the city to ask the landlord to stop the evictions,” Torres said, “or to come to the table and let’s negotiate something better for these tenants.”
Torres’ fight may be an uphill battle, as the landlord has the legal right to remove the Parkside Gardens tenants. But the new owner says he’s willing to hear the residents out.
“We want to try to do what’s right for everybody, and there’s a lot of stakeholders involved,” said Peter Wilson, president of PTLA Real Estate Group.
Shortly after purchasing the property on Parkside Drive in Concord, PTLA, which specializes in buying and renovating neglected properties in California, Oregon and Washington, came up with a plan to fix not only the structural issues required by the city, but also repair the pool and add a children’s playground and community garden, said Wilson. The real estate group quickly posted notices on tenants’ doors terminating their month-to-month leases and giving them 60 days to move out.
The real estate group is offering displaced families $3,000 in moving expenses and housing assistance, or the option to relocate temporarily to one of PTLA’s other properties with a potential discount on rent, Wilson said.
“The hope is obviously that they come back when we’ve done the renovations,” he said.
But it won’t be the same apartment building. Chandler, who pays $1,200 a month for her two-bedroom apartment, would see her rent jump to as much as $2,000. The single mother, who works as an assistant in a dentist’s office, still isn’t sure what she’s going to do.
“I’m probably going to have to move in with a friend or someone,” she said.
Lisa Lopez is frantically searching for a second job to help her cover moving expenses and an inevitable rent hike, but she’s worried she’s going to run out of time.
“It’s overwhelming,” 47-year-old Lopez said. She works as a driver for a lab that makes dentures, spending her days driving to dentist’s offices and picking up molds of teeth, and already spends about half her income on rent.
Now Lopez is building up the courage to speak before City Council on Tuesday.
“I don’t know what will happen or if it will change anything,” she said, “but at least we’re standing up for ourselves.”
