As economy worsens, tenants squeeze in

By Timothy Pratt

Monday, April 6, 2009 | 2 a.m.

Clarence Rowles had to pause, use his fingers to count the number of people who lived with him in his downtown apartment until last month.

Jim Shadrick, code enforcement inspector for the Las Vegas Neighborhood Services Department, stood nearby with the correct number at the tip of his tongue. There were nine people in a place no bigger than 600 square feet.

Shadrick says the situation at the downtown apartment was a sign of the times, a problem he has been running across in the past six months or so. On one hand, more people than a year ago are seeking help paying the rent from a Clark County Social Service program that offers $400 a month. These are people newly struggling at the bottom of the economic ladder. But on the other hand, inspectors such as Shadrick find more landlords trying to take advantage of those people.

Shadrick’s work has always included sanctioning landlords who maintain low-rent apartments in less-than-desirable conditions. Now those landlords have apparently discovered they can also cram a large number of people fresh from the Social Service office under one roof, fully aware that options are few at $400 a month. One of 11 people in code enforcement, Shadrick has seen about 15 such cases since late last year. He often winds up having to help renters find another place to live, while leaving the landlord with a list of repairs that must be made.

Rowles, for example, stood at the edge of a living room with a mattress blocking a window missing panes. Electrical wires snaked from a nearby wall. Other apartments in the same small building had gaping holes in bathroom walls and bad plumbing, Shadrick said.

The issue exposes a long-standing gap in the system for renters of the city’s estimated 55,000 apartments. Shadrick and other inspectors act only on complaints, so many problems are not discovered for some time or missed altogether. A system that would have charged landlords and property owners a fee to fund annual inspections of all apartments never got off the ground with the Las Vegas City Council three years ago.

Tim Burch, assistant director at the county agency, says he has no way of recommending one landlord over another. “If you recommend someone, it’s a de facto statement against someone who’s not on the list,” he said.

The result: The growing number of people who need help are on their own when it comes to finding a decent place to live.

Burch said the number of people using the rental assistance program went from 23,397 during the six-month period from September 2007 to February 2008 to 35,950 during the same six months a year later — a 53.6 percent increase. Applicants can apply for the checks up to three times a year.

He added that new landlords have entered the low-rent market during this period, some in suburban houses.

Burch said landlords who try to get away with stuffing large numbers of people with rental assistance checks into apartments or houses are often discovered when neighbors who “aren’t used to seeing indigent people” complain. This is noteworthy because both he and Shadrick point out that the poor are often remiss to complain, afraid of losing what little they have.

On a recent morning visit, Rowles asked Shadrick if he could get a lock on his bedroom door, even though he was now alone in the apartment. He said he felt insecure after having so many people coming and going from his address until recently, some with drug and alcohol habits.

Elsewhere downtown, Shadrick offers a tour of housing from hell, including a one-bedroom house that brimmed with nine people until the landlady stopped dealing with renters from the county program, another that is $500 deep in fines as of a few weeks ago where no one would come to the door, and a third house that overflowed with 10 people until the owner closed it down.

Devin Smith, Shadrick’s boss at the city, lamented the situation facing people living through hard times and with few options for a place to live.

“The last thing we want to do is attempt to help someone and wind up hurting them,” he said.