Archdiocese Seeks Woman’s Eviction : Church Wants to Use Home Where 20-Year Tenant Has lived Rent-Free

Officials of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Los Angeles say they have been patient with Antonia Martin, but their patience has run out.

They want the 59-year-old Torrance woman to pack her bags and leave the church-owned Torrance house where she has lived for 20 years.

Martin says she can’t afford to move.

So on Jan. 11, the archdiocese will ask a South Bay Municipal Court judge to evict her.

Paid No Rent

The 600-square-foot wood-frame house at 20535 Anza Blvd. is on the grounds of St. James Catholic School, where Antonia’s late husband, Angel, was a custodian from 1968 until his death in July of 1987. The church allowed the couple and their two daughters to live there rent-free while he worked at the school.

Now that he is gone, the church wants Antonia Martin out of the house so it can be used for school faculty meetings.

Martin, who lives alone, contends that a priest at St. James Catholic Church in Redondo Beach, which runs the school, told her in November that she could stay until she could afford to move. Now, she said, church officials have gone back on their word.

“I thought that the church would be more sensitive toward me,” said Martin, who came with her husband to the South Bay from Cuba in 1967. “I thought they would be more considerate.”

Martin, who said she has a back ailment that prevents her from working, lives on $340-a-month disability checks. She said she can’t find a suitable apartment that she can afford.

“I would move if I could afford it,” she said. “I just can’t do it.”

Stay Until June

Martin said she only wants to stay in the home until June, when she turns 60 and becomes eligible for Social Security benefits. She said she does not know how much the payments will be, but she hopes the money will enable her to afford an apartment.

Neal Blaney director of real estate for the archdiocese, said that if the priest--who is on vacation and could not be reached--did promise to let Martin stay, he did not mean she could stay until June, nearly two years after her husband’s death.

“We are not going to give this house to her rent-free forever,” he said. “Months have gone by, and we have had no indication that she has found or intends to find other housing.”

The church referred Martin to the Catholic Charities social service agency in Long Beach, but Lupe Macker the regional director, said Martin has “not been very cooperative.”

Macker said Martin was offered several housing options, including group housing for the elderly and care and board facilities, but none appealed to her.

“She has not accepted the reality that she has to move,” Macker said.

Martin said she wants to stay in the Torrance area and the housing offered by the agency was too far away or had other drawbacks.

Mark Todd, a paralegal working for the archdiocese, said the church has offered to allow Martin to stay in the home rent-free until Feb. 15.

“But that is our final offer,” he said. “I think the church has been very lenient. There is no doubt about it.”

Margaret Kirby, a Hermosa Beach attorney who has taken Martin’s case, says Martin should be allowed to stay in the house until June because church officials told Martin “to take all the time you need.”

“Besides,” Kirby said, “if the school has been without a meeting place for 20 years, why can’t they wait a few more months?”

Kirby said Martin cannot find other housing because of her limited income.

“You try to find an apartment for $340 a month and see how you do,” she said. Martin has applied to several retirement homes, but they were too expensive or had long waiting lists, she said.

Martin said she does not want to seek help or move in with one of her two grown daughters, one in Lomita and one in Cerritos, because “they have their own lives, and I don’t want to burden them.”

Both church officials and Martin said they are willing to negotiate. But if negotiations fail and the case goes to court, Martin said, “I just hope God’s grace is with me.”