New Wave of Quake Refugees Hitting Hotels, Apartments : Recovery: Some homeowners are only now receiving insurance money or government loans for repairs. Many find transition to temporary quarters fairly easy.

After another long day at the office, David Ustin pulls up in front of the Warner Center Marriott Hotel, hands his keys to the valet, and walks through the glass porte-cochere into the lobby.

Ustin is home--at least, what has been his home for the past seven months.

Like hundreds of other homeowners with homes damaged by the Jan. 17 Northridge earthquake, Ustin and his wife, Ethel, have had to find temporary lodging while repairing their quake-damaged Tarzana house.

They live without home-cooked meals, their cozy couch, their mementos from 53 years of marriage.

“Living in a hotel for so long, you find out that you can live without a lot of things,” said Ethel Ustin. “All you really need is a bed, bathroom and your clothes.”

Although areas scattered around Los Angeles were hit hard by the quake, the greatest demand for temporary housing has been in the San Fernando Valley.

And although Valley-area hotel and apartment managers say the biggest influx of temporary tenants arrived just after the quake, they are noticing the beginnings of another migration of homeowners who are only now receiving insurance money or Small Business Administration loans to repair their homes.

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A spokeswoman at the corporate-oriented Oakwood Apartments, for instance, estimated that about 100 units in the 1,151-unit complex in Toluca Lake and 125 units in the 883-unit facility in Woodland Hills are occupied by homeowners waiting for home repairs to be completed.

By contrast, over the hill the Oakwood at Westmoreland and Third has only about 20 units occupied by displaced homeowners and the Oakwood in West Los Angeles reported just a handful of quake-damage refugees.

The timing of the second wave of quake-repair refugees means a lot of people will be spending the holidays away from home.

“We moved in July when the work on our home was supposed to start, but the work still hasn’t started,” said Dorothy Stockdale, who with her husband, Raymond, has been living in the Toluca Lake Oakwood Apartments while their Hollywood Manor home is repaired. “We’ve resigned ourselves to celebrating the holidays here.”

This renewed demand for temporary housing is not expected to make a significant dent in the Valley’s 12% rental vacancy rate, according to Mary Ellen Hughes, executive director of the Apartment Assn. of San Fernando Valley / Ventura County. However, Hughes said that in the West Valley the vacancy rate has dropped to about 8%.

For those with damaged houses, the decision of whether to move into a hotel or apartment often depends on how much time a homeowner expects to be away from home and who is paying the bills. Those who anticipate shorter stays, and who can depend on insurance money to pay for living expenses, favor hotels; those who expect to be homeless for some time, have loans that will need to be repaid and have no living reimbursements, opt for apartments.

The cost is vastly different: Nice hotels run about $100 a night; furnished corporate apartments with month-to-month leases run about $1,550 a month for a one-bedroom apartment. If leases of less than a year can be found in regular unfurnished apartment complexes, the cost can be far lower.

But whatever the choice, in each case homeowners used to their space and privacy have to adjust to having only a wall separating them from their neighbors and to sharing everything from laundry facilities to parking spaces.

Surprisingly, however, homeowners interviewed said the transition has not been all that difficult.

“The hard part in all this was making the decision where to move,” said Vivian Boyer, who last month was forced to move out for at least six months while her 143-unit Tarzana townhouse complex is being repaired. She and her husband, Martin, chose an apartment complex in Woodland Hills, where one-bedrooms begin at $850 a month.

“Apartment living is OK, but I would not chose to do it on a permanent basis,” said Boyer, adding that she misses her washer and dryer and hates having to park one car behind the other in the shared parking lot.

Insurance purchased by the Boyers’ homeowners association is paying for repairs, but they are responsible for the first $16,000. They also did not have insurance coverage for living expenses.

It was Marty Rosenblatt’s pets that made him immediately rule out a hotel for temporary accommodations. Instead, he, his wife, his daughter, their dog and two cats moved into a two-bedroom apartment near their under-construction Woodland Hills home.

“We’ve managed so far, but it’s not the same as our home,” Rosenblatt said. “We are viewing this as a summer getaway.”

Dorothy Stockdale has daily reminders that her own house is not yet under construction because she can actually see it from the windows of her furnished apartment at the Toluca Lake Oakwood.

“It hasn’t been too bad here,” she said. “It’s very quiet. The people are friendly. We just hope that the work on our house starts before the rains begin.”

At hotels, various accommodations are being made for the long-term guests.

Long-term guests at the Warner Center Hilton and Towers in Woodland Hills get a discount from the normal $129-a-night room rate, said General Manager Fred De Stefano, although he would not disclose the amount of the break. Quake-repair refugees have stayed as long as six months at the 318-room hotel and De Stefano has tried to make the rooms homier by providing small refrigerators and additional furniture.

The 461-room Warner Center Marriott Hotel in Woodland Hills hired a second guest relations manager to specifically address the concerns of long-term guests, said Julie Reigle, director of sales and marketing.

“We have held several parties for them to get to know our staff,” she said. “They have become like family to the hotel staff.”

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