Summer 2006 • Issue 22, page 12

Receivers Participate in Slum Housing Symposium

By Bronston, Edythe*

A ground-breaking symposium organized to meet the urgent need for slum housing repair was presented March 4, 2006 at UCLA Law School by Bet Tzedek, in partnership with the Los Angeles Housing Department and the UCLA Public Interest Law Program. Bet Tzedek is an organization that provides free legal representation for those unable to afford counsel.

The symposium was a participatory workshop on the use of receiverships authorized by the California Health and Safety Code to improve living conditions for tenants, deter slumlord behavior and preserve affordable housing for existing mixed and low-income communities. Several members of the Los Angeles / Orange County chapter of the California Receivers Forum participated in the program, which also addressed long term prospects for increasing community and/or non-profit affordable housing corporation ownership of properties.

The symposium, unlike most, was more than a procession of speakers. Rather, representatives from academia, affordable housing providers, city attorneys, political specialists, community and economic development specialists, code enforcement officials, community/ tenant organizers, community legal service providers, private lenders/ developers, public lenders/developers, and receivers gathered together to brainstorm on the efficient use of receiverships to eradicate slums and the resources for funding them should the City of Los Angeles determine it can effectively reach its revitalization goals through the use of Health and Safety Code statutes authorizing receiver-supervised rehabilita-tion of substandard housing. Many non-local and out of state agencies, law schools and political specialists were also represented.

The structure of the symposium was unique. The 40-plus participants were divided into three working groups (after an initial plenary session) led by Elissa Barrett, Housing Attorney for Bet Tzedek, Gary Blasi, Professor, UCLA School of Law, and Joe Schilling, Professor of Law at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University. Edythe Bronston, David Pasternak and Rob Warren were the receiver representatives for each group, each of which had approximately equal membership representation from public and private, regulatory and business sectors. Each discussed key problems and issues of housing reform.

After breakout sessions the participants reconvened to summarize the findings of each group, and to look for common strategies to achieve the needed housing reform.

The symposium was the first time that such varied “stakeholders” (i.e. persons and entities with strong interests in reforming slum housing) were gathered together to address the possible use of statutory receiverships to address the problem. The brainstorming produced two working groups which have begun to strategize about a series of test cases and address how to support those receiverships with emergency and construction financing.

— Edythe L. Bronston

*Edythe L. Bronston is an attorney and receiver in Sherman Oaks, California. She is a co-founder and past-president of both the Los Angeles / Orange County chapter of the California Receivers Forum and the statewide organization. She has served as receiver for many kinds of business entities and has now offers substantial expertise in the production and sale of motion pictures.