No Easy Solutions for Housing and Health Care Problems

The twin problems of housing and health care that plague the northeast San Fernando Valley have defied solution yet remain at the center of debate at all levels of society and government.

On the national level, presidential contenders have put the two issues high on their lists of priorities.

Democrat Al Gore has proposed expanding an existing tax credit program by $5.7 billion over 10 years to allow construction of 180,000 rental homes or homes for ownership.

Republican George W. Bush has proposed a $1.7-billion tax credit program designed to encourage construction of 100,000 homes over the next five years for low-income residents.

On health care, Bush proposed giving tax credits to the uninsured to enable them to buy private health insurance. The cost of the proposal is about $34.7 billion over five years.

Gore’s more ambitious plan would cost about $346 billion over 10 years and would include an expanded prescription drug benefit for Medicare and a program to guarantee all children access to health coverage by 2005.

Civic leaders said the problems of the northeast Valley are the product of decades of neglect by Washington and City Hall, so it may take years to turn the area around. Consensus about what to do remains as elusive locally as it is nationally.

For instance, last year the Los Angeles Community Redevelopment Agency proposed that much of the area become the largest redevelopment project in Los Angeles history--6,835 acres that would receive a $490-million revitalization effort over the next four decades.

The proposal optimistically called for up to 1,600 quality, affordable housing units in the area. The redevelopment agency’s ability to provide financial incentives for developers is the key to revitalization, according to Gary Forsch, who manages a Sun Valley hardware store and served on a redevelopment advisory committee for the area.

But the community split over the plan, with many residents fearing that the controversial agency would misuse its powers to bulldoze whole residential neighborhoods, and the proposal foundered.

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With his constituents divided, Los Angeles City Councilman Alex Padilla, who is running for reelection in April, put off any action on the plan for two years.

Rather than using tax funds to subsidize wealthy developers, the city could make progress simply by enforcing existing building and safety regulations, said Victor Carreon, a businessman and critic of the redevelopment agency plan.

Area health advocates said the huge number of uninsured in the northeast Valley could benefit from a major enrollment push to get people who are qualified into assistance programs.

“Part of the problem is the difficulty of the application process,” said Barbara Frankel of the Health Consumer Center, an advocacy group for low-income residents. “Simplification would go a long way toward getting things covered.”

Frankel suggested a new rule: Any child who qualifies for a free school lunch automatically receives Medi-Cal.

In the meantime, those hurt most by the crisis in housing, health and services are at the bottom of the socioeconomic scale--including the most recent immigrants, according to Xavier Flores, past president of the Valley chapter of the Mexican American Political Assn.

“There is a huge, huge housing crunch,” he said. “Much more needs to be done.”