A Kern County grand jury
report released Thursday highlighted alarming conditions at a low-income senior
housing facility on Wilson Road, ranging from homeless people coming and going
at will to inoperable smoke alarms and security cameras to prostitution and
drug deals on the premises.
The 13-page account
recommended a list of urgent changes to be made next year, such as restoring
the facility's food pantry, locking down access and scheduling more on-site
activities, while also giving the facility's owner and operator, the Housing
Authority of the County of Kern, 90 days to respond to the report.
The housing authority's
assistant executive director, Heather Kimmel, took issue Thursday with some of
the report's conclusions, saying improvements have been made that were not
reflected in the report. But she acknowledged the semi-independent public
agency has been frustrated by the impact crime has had on the 199-unit Plaza
Towers/Plaza Towers Annex at 3015 Wilson Road.
Several senior county
officials declined to address the report ahead of the authority's 90-day
deadline to respond to the grand jury. But a commissioner of the agency, Keith
Wolaridge, who said he had been unaware of the concerns detailed in the report,
spoke up to say they will be addressed.
"My initial thought,
you know, (is that) I do have a concern," he said. "It's our
responsibility to look after all of our tenants and their safety, and we will
take right actions going forward."
Several people living at
the facility vouched for many of the report's allegations in interviews
Thursday, saying that although some conditions have improved in recent months,
security remains a big concern, along with problems like bed bugs, rooms
reeking of drugs and cigarettes and a front gate that never closes.
"We don't feel
safe," partly because the facility's doors don't lock at night, said
five-year resident Irma Cetto. "We have problems with parking. We have
problems with everything. They say they don't have money."
Another five-year
resident, Lucy Portillo, said the water at the towers "tastes and smells
bad." When it rains, the lobby floods, and non-residents have unimpeded
access, she said, adding, "It's bad."
Ross Walters, who has
lived there for about a year, noted someone recently defecated in the laundry
room and that, while people do enter at will, "they have locked it down a
lot … in the last month."
The report compares three
of the housing authority's facilities, the other two being the Pinewood Glen
Retirement property at 2221 Real Road, which serves "low-income"
residents, and the Park Place Senior Apartments, serving "very
low-income" residents. The towers serve "extremely low-income" residents
making 30 percent or less of the area's adjusted median income, which was
$59,700 in April of last year.
After interviewing housing
authority officials, reviewing budgets, reading crime summaries and speaking
with residents, the grand jury concluded security and access are big problems
at the towers — but not its only challenges.
The housing authority only
has two full-time investigators, which the report characterized as insufficient
and in need of addressing on a schedule laid out in the document.
It found a senior food
pantry launched there in May 2010 no longer exists and should be restored by
March 1. It said a single hour per week of organized activity, a bingo game, is
inadequate to keep residents busy.
The report pointed to
non-working smoke alarms and disabled security cameras, prostitution and drug
sales on the property.
The grand jury witnessed people
they said they assumed were homeless entering and leaving the facility during
their visit.
Kimmel noted the housing
authority recently spent more than $725,000 on security measures, not all of it
at the towers property. She added that other deficiencies are being addressed,
such as the property's access gates.
She denied the property
has been neglected simply because residents there pay less money in rent than
do others at facilities that charge more. One problem, she said, is that the
towers property has a higher concentration of residents and is surrounded by a
neighborhood with greater crime problems.
In one example, it noted
someone has been living unauthorized on one of the towers' roofs, and that the
person has caused more than $35,000 in damage so far this year.
"Trespassers are
occupying the laundry rooms, stairwells, bathrooms and sleeping within the
facility often locking stairwells, preventing residents' access," the
report noted.
Another concern raised in
the document was that the property's crime log does not match that of the
Bakersfield Police Department, whose records showed incidents not noted by the
property's management.
Bakersfield.com
John Cox
December 15, 2022
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