Senior facing eviction today

Newport Beach resident Arleen Heywood says she doesn’t know where she’ll live after Easter Sunday.

The Orange County Sheriff’s Department is slated to evict 75-year-old Heywood, her dog and disabled adult son today from her home in Bayview Landing Senior Apartments in Newport Beach.

“I’ve run out of money,” Heywood said she told an Orange County judge at an eviction hearing last month.

With views of Upper Newport Bay, a movie theater and fitness center, Bayview Landing opened in December 2005 as a premier affordable-housing complex for seniors in Orange County. The 120-unit complex was financed by state tax credits and a loan from the city of Newport Beach.

“When I first came here I was led to believe that this would be affordable housing as I am on a fixed income,” Heywood said. “It has turned out to be just the opposite.”

Heywood is the second senior to be evicted from Bayview Landing in the past six months because of financial hardship, court records show.

“I just hope that the Lord will help me through this,” Heywood said on Friday, taking a break from packing up her belongings. “People don’t like me here, because I’ve made a big stink about all this.”

Angered over her eviction, Heywood has fired off several rambling missives, all in capital letters, to the Irvine Co., the city of Newport Beach, and the other various agencies that oversee Bayview Landing, complaining of everything from the late fees charged for tardy rent payments to the management at Bayview Landing.

“When you lose your home, it’s an emotional issue,” said Israel Mata, a regional manager for Related Management, which runs Bayview Landing. “People get frustrated when their lives fall apart.”

The Las Palmas Foundation, the nonprofit organization that oversees social services at Bayview Landing, claims it has tried to help Heywood with her rent and to find a new, more affordable place to live.

“I think she is probably angry at her wits end — people act in a variety of ways when they are afraid and angry and don’t know what to do,” said Madelyne Pfeiffer, director of social services for the Las Palmas Foundation. “We have all gotten involved in this case, everyone knows about it, and everyone has done their part to help figure this out.”

Las Palmas has tried to refer Heywood to numerous social services agencies that would help her with her rent, but many charitable groups have been stretched to the limits because of the recession, Pfeiffer said.

“The problem lies where we’re at in terms of these nonprofit organizations and their abilities to fund these things — everyone is dried out, but in terms of resources and referrals, we do anything we can to work with residents.”

Heywood was one of the first residents to move into Bayview Landing when it opened in late 2005.

Since then, her rent has increase from $800 to $1,023 a month.

The rates are based on median-income statistics for Orange County set by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.

Although rent won’t go up for seniors at Bayview Landing this year, because income levels in the county have stagnated over the past year in Orange County, some seniors are still having problems paying their rent because of the down economy, Mata said.

“We’ve found over last year or so, people are having problems if they had income from assets and those have gone south — that’s not just here, that’s everywhere,”

Bayview Landing resident Shari Jajoni, 69, works two days a week to supplement her social security checks so she can afford her rent. She and other seniors are worried about future rent increases at the complex, she said.

“A lot of people have been moving out of here; it’s been like a swinging door,” Jajoni said. “We’re all waiting to see if there’s going to be another rent increase.”

Although Pfeiffer and Mata both said Heywood has told them she has found another, more affordable place to live, Heywood claims she has no place to go after today.

“I’ll probably rent a cheap motel room in Costa Mesa,” she said.

Mata claims Heywood called him recently to tell him she had found a new apartment.

“We worked with her to try to help her get another place to live. She told me she found another place she could afford,” Mata said. “I was genuinely happy for her.”

Reporter BRIANNA BAILEY may be reached at (714) 966-4625 or at brianna.bailey@latimes.com.