Some people, they said, block the drains intentionally to use the showers for laundry. Maintenance crews, they said, are beginning to repair or replace clogged sinks in individual rooms but that drains are still chronically backed up and mold is growing in showers in shared bathrooms on each floor. The two tenants at the Boyd, a 112-year-old residential hotel with 61 units, said they’ve been withholding rent because they have long-standing legal claims against Skid Row Housing Trust over conditions at the building. Through a spokesperson, Adams said that there is 24/7 security at every site and that he never pledged to have round-the-clock management. In court, an attorney representing Adams said that lenders required the higher interest rate after investors in some of the trust’s better properties expressed a desire to remove them from the receivership, making the deal more risky for them. “I think it’s fair to say we’ve been disappointed.” “We believed that this receiver had both the liquidity and the experience and expertise to quickly get on top of and manage the situation,” Feldstein Soto said.
Feldstein Soto said the city also has been spot checking trust properties and found that there isn’t always management and security on site, contrary to Adams’ assertions. But she said she’s been unimpressed by Adams’ performance.Ī $1.3-million loan Adams has received came with a 15% interest rate, violating an agreement the city had with the receiver not to exceed 10% interest when borrowing money, a deputy city attorney said at a court hearing last month. Additionally, in two cases comparable in size and scope to the trust matter, Adams left years before they were resolved and, in court filings, omitted key facts about his involvement in them.įeldstein Soto continued to maintain that the situation’s urgency pointed toward Adams as uniquely qualified to address it. Behind the scenes, it was imploding - leaving tenants in squalor.įeldstein Soto has said that the trust’s rapid disintegration required the city to turn to Adams, who has handled 300 receiverships over more than two decades, as the only one who could handle the situation despite not fully vetting his resume beforehand.Ī Times review of Adams’ record published last month found that in some cases, tenants faced the risk of eviction, property owners lost their houses and multiple judges determined he inflated his fees by six-figure amounts. The Skid Row Housing Trust was a model for nonprofits housing homeless people in Los Angeles. Under a receivership, Adams would have the authority to borrow money to pay for repairs and upgrades to the trust’s residential hotels and other low-income apartment complexes, putting them on solid financial footing - ultimately to allow other affordable housing providers to take over.Ĭalifornia Bad bets, dysfunction: Inside the collapse of the Skid Row Housing Trust Many tenants are elderly, disabled or suffering from mental health and drug problems. This spring, the city pushed for Adams to be put in charge of the properties after the nonprofit housing provider had largely abandoned them in squalid conditions. Their case managers have been laid off, and people from the street continue to enter the building at all hours to use the bathrooms, sleep, use drugs or buy contraband. A second is in and out of service, and the maintenance crew has locked the other two, they said. Only one of the four bathrooms on their floor works reliably, they said. Two residents of the Boyd Hotel who received eviction notices told The Times that conditions there had changed little, and in some ways grown worse, in the two months of the receivership. The eviction notices are the latest example of concerns about Adams’ performance from city officials and the trust’s tenants. A spokesperson for the firm referred comment to the receiver.
“Solely because of failure to pay rent, I will not seek to evict anyone,” Adams said in the letter.Īdams said he didn’t know how many tenants had received the eviction notices, and that any further similar action taken by Beach Front Property Management would be grounds for its termination. He said he distributed a letter rescinding them to all 1,500 Skid Row Housing Trust tenants on Monday.
In an email to The Times, Adams said that the notices were a mistake and sent without his approval. The city’s letter tells Adams that he has 48 hours to provide a written accounting of how many notices went out and who authorized them. It also reminded Adams that he had pledged in court documents never to evict a tenant for overdue rent only. Feldstein Soto’s office sent Adams a letter Tuesday telling him that the notices were prohibited under city laws, including a recently passed measure that does not allow landlords to evict tenants who are only one month behind on rent.
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