Local News in Brief : Garden Grove : Buena Clinton Renters Picket Over Conditions

About 60 Buena Clinton tenants who have withheld rent payments for three months to protest housing conditions picketed in front of Orange County Municipal Court in Westminster on Thursday to draw attention to their complaints.

Renters from the six-square-block “pocket of poverty” in the southern part of Garden Grove carried signs demanding repairs and fair rents, said Richard Spix, an attorney representing the group. In Buena Clinton, the average two-bedroom apartment rents for $675 a month, according to Spix, who said many units are dilapidated and rodent-infested.

Greg Devereaux, director of housing and neighborhood development for the Garden Grove Housing Authority, agreed that the Buena Clinton area “needs attention.” But he said that many of the complaints are overstated.

He said apartment complexes are visually inspected every three months by city inspectors and that owners have been cited for offenses such as leaky roofs, bad tile and walls in need of repair. He said the area has improved in the past five years.

“When the city first started working there, there was raw sewage running down driveways,” Devereaux said. “We don’t see those type of conditions anymore, not even close.”

In the strike, the rent from 75 families has been placed in a trust to be paid to the owners when repairs are made, said Spix, an lawyer for Hermandad Mexicana Nacional, a Latino immigrant rights group.