Rialto Relentless in push to improve slums. (Daily Bulletin 050806) E. Jackson St. Landlords feeling pressure to Open their Wallets.....

I don't know if E. Jackson will be ever to get over the title of "Slum" since this whole ordeal started. The calls for service that the police have had, and the Murder's really have given that area a huge bad name. However it seems that the two owners depicted in the article by the Daily Bulliten are wanting to try and make it better. It is true that you can see they look at their apartments as a business and want to gain total sucess in their business. I wish them luck!!

BSRancher

Rialto relentless in push to improve slums Jackson Street landlords feeling pressure to open their wallets By Robert Rogers, Staff Writer

RIALTO - Jose Rodriguez is a self-made success, living a Horatio Alger tale after rising from the depths of poverty in Chihuahua, Mexico, to wealth and power in America through real estate. But the rocky road hasn’t led to a golden palace. Instead, it has led to the ramshackle four-unit apartments on East Jackson Street, where he sheds his own sweat in the grimy world of low-income housing. ‘‘I have made many business mistakes since I came to the United States in 1971, but I have always worked hard and tried to do right,’’ Rodriguez said. But Rodriguez, like the other owners of East Jackson’s 28 apartment buildings, is not without blame for a street that has witnessed eight killings and more than 1,000 calls to police since 2004, city officials say. Their roles in the run-down neighborhood are complex tangles of bad luck, frayed relations, weak oversight, suspicion, tight finances and, some would argue, greed. Some landlords bear more blame than others, and factors stemming from beyond the street have played roles in East Jackson’s decline. But the success of a city-driven renewal effort will depend largely on the extent to which the landlords clean up a street whose reputation is smeared in filth and blood. Rodriguez, like nearly all the property owners, said he favors the city’s vigorous push since March to overhaul East Jackson. But while supporting the idea of the forced cleanup – Rialto building and safety officials have given the owners until June 1 to conduct thousands of dollars worth of repairs – some of the East Jackson landlords complain about the steep costs. ‘‘At minimum, to meet what the city wants is going to cost around $20,000 more,’’ said one owner who requested her name not be used. ‘‘I’ve already spent $60,000 putting in new tile, baths, sinks and stoves since I bought the place six months ago. This hasn’t been a good investment so far,’’ she said. The owners are scheduled to meet – at the city’s firm request – for a second time May 16 to discuss the creation of an owners association. Housing specialist John Dutrey, the meeting’s organizer, said the goal is to overcome the ‘‘prisoner’s dilemma’’ – a theory in which owners, because of disunity, find it in their economic interests to save on maintenance and other costs. The result is dilapidated neighborhoods like East Jackson, Dutrey said, and is best overcome by creating an association that collects money each month from all the owners to maintain and manage the neighborhood. It also promises to be another recurring cost to owners with thin or inverted profit margins. ‘‘It has been tough going so far. I’ve lost money, but I believe in Rialto,’’ said Ernesto Cambrone, a West Covina loan officer who was seeking to open another income stream when he bought the property at 242 E. Jackson St. earlier this year. Instead, he has lost money because of vacancies and the city’s costly quest to rebuild the street. Cambrone may be newer to the street than most of the owners, but he fits in easily. The owners are predominantly working- to middle-class, Latino, hard-working and looking to support their families by keying into the real estate bonanza. They are also absent – only one owner lives on the street. The units, built in the 1970s, were intended to be owner-occupied, Dutrey said. Despite the nearly uniform agreement of the need to clean up East Jackson, few of the landlords have opened their wallets to make improvements without the city’s prodding. Alicia Muro of Rancho Cucamonga owns a four-unit building at 153 E. Jackson St. She also claims to be losing money. City inspectors have flagged the Muros’ property with nearly 50 violations, including having non-breakaway bars on bedroom windows and a lack of fire alarms or extinguishers. The building’s exterior has a new coat of tan paint, but Mary Garcia, who said she and her daughter Soncrese Watson have paid $1,050 per month since last year for a three-bedroom apartment, blasted Muro during an April 27 tour of her apartment. She pointed to numerous leak stains in the living room and leaky pipes underneath the kitchen sink. The damp, dank smell of mildew was pervasive. ‘‘The Muros don’t care one bit that there’s mold or that there’s bars on the window or that I got to put out a dozen pots or pans to catch leaks when it rains,’’ Garcia said. The couple acknowledged the leaks and vowed to repair them. They also are pursuing legal eviction against the tenants in Garcia’s apartment because they stopped paying rent. But not all tenant/landlord relations are strained. Jackie Yniguez, who rents an apartment with her husband, Richard, on Jackson St., said her landlord has moved swiftly to refurbish the building in recent weeks. ‘‘She was out here with code enforcement, and has been around constantly ever since putting in everything from new stoves to new blinds,’’ Yniguez said of her landlord, Orange County-based Margarita Magana. Rodriguez, a warm man with disarming modesty and a hefty, jolly build, has worked hard at his properties, often in lieu of hiring professionals. His strategy for maintaining his buildings has changed some since the city began applying pressure, as evidenced by new professional paint jobs coating Rodriguez’s properties. He owns 25 percent of the properties on East Jackson. Another building is owned by his son, Javier. At one time or another, Rodriguez or a member of his family has owned about half of the 28 buildings on East Jackson. A life of renting properties in high-crime areas hasn’t left Rodriguez unscathed. Since he bought his first rental property in Los Angeles in the early 1970s, Rodriguez said, he has been beaten and robbed more times than he can remember. His front teeth are fake. His original teeth were knocked out a few years ago when an East Jackson tenant punched him in the mouth for asking for the rent. Rodriguez said he’s willing to do whatever the city wants and is glad the police and code enforcers have finally focused on East Jackson. He attended a city-organized workshop on rebuilding East Jackson on April 18, and officials say he was cooperative and engaged. Rodriguez estimated the restoration the city will force on the owners will cost him $20,000 for each of his seven properties, or about $140,000. Rialto Chief Building Official Chaz Ferguson said Rodriguez has benefited from a property value explosion that has propelled each of the 28 buildings at East Jackson to nearly $600,000, more than tripling owners’ investments in just a few years. Despite the wild profits, Ferguson said, 60 percent of the living quarters on East Jackson are ‘‘slums.’’ The city’s new scrutiny has shown East Jackson’s disrepair to be beyond the ability of Rodriguez’s two hands. It’s about to demand more of his wallet.