Bill Maida is in a bind.
He lives on Social Security benefits at a low-income development for seniors in City Heights and recently learned that his rent is going up - a problem affecting other cash-strapped seniors throughout the state.
"I don't understand how they can take advantage of seniors," said Maida, 64, who relies on a motorized wheelchair to get around. "We're supposed to be in the limelight of our life, but they're sticking it to us."
Maida lives at the 150-unit City Heights Square apartments, where monthly rent increases for studio and one-bedroom units are ranging from $13 to $54 this month. Rents are rising more at the 200-unit Potiker Family Senior Residence in the East Village, where seniors live in studio apartments.
Both buildings were built and are maintained by nonprofit development arms of the Senior Community Centers of San Diego.
Chief Executive Paul Downey said he is powerless to stop the rent increases. The apartments were built with the aid of millions in state tax credits in exchange for affordable rents.
Downey said he and the development partners decided they had to approve the increases to pay for maintenance and the rising cost of utilities, particularly gas and water. The increases also were needed to pay for meals, social workers, mental health workers and activities that Senior Community Centers provides at the two locations.
Downey said nonprofit housing developers across the state are making similar hard choices at a time when donations are down. He said he is working with the San Diego Housing Commission to see if some of the seniors can obtain rent breaks under a federal housing program, but the waiting list has thousands ahead of them.
"The situation is not in our control," Downey said. "We could decide not to implement the increases, but that would set them up for a larger increase a year from now. It's unfortunate. I feel badly for them."
He added that without the rent increases, meals, social workers or other services would have been cut.
Each year, the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development sets the maximum rents that can be charged on subsidized housing based on the local median income. Operators of the housing developments determine how much to charge below that threshold.
Unfortunately, rent increases are sometimes necessary to cover rising operations costs, said Tom Scott, executive director of the San Diego Housing Federation, an advocacy association for builders and operators of affordable housing.
Scott said the developments receive subsidies to offer below-market rents, but the operators receive no breaks on energy cost increases or other rising costs.
"These developments are built with a very thin margin as far as operating costs," Scott said. "Their costs keep going up."
Jana Goodman, 65, is a retired lawyer who has been disabled since the early 1990s, when she suffered two strokes. Goodman rents a one-bedroom apartment at City Heights Square, which opened last summer, and her rent is increasing to $632 a month from $578, a $54 jump.
Goodman, who lives on $850 a month in Social Security and Supplemental Security Income allotments, said she was stunned to learn in August that her rent would rise Oct. 1. She said she will have to reduce her food budget, and she chokes up when talking about some of her neighbors.
"We have people in this building whose only meal is the lunch provided Monday through Friday by the Senior Community Centers," said Goodman, who is struggling to recover from cracked ribs she suffered in an accident. "They are literally getting one meal a day. They're scared to death."
Sandra Sharp, 62, said her rent is increasing to $623 a month from $552. Sharp, who lives in a studio apartment at the five-year-old Potiker Family Senior Residence, is on disability after surviving four heart attacks.
She lives on about $900 in government benefits and said there are not many other apartments she can afford.
"You're trapped here, and they know you're trapped," Sharp said. "What is my alternative? Where do I go? They're supposed to be helping seniors, but instead they're attacking seniors. It's not fair."
Downey said his organization tries to help seniors manage by providing free meals and a full-time social worker at each site.
But for residents such as Ronnie Tobey, 66, a cancer patient with no family, it is rent - not services - that worry her.
Tobey lives on about $800 a month, and the monthly rent on her studio apartment in City Heights is rising to $429 from $414.
She would like to keep the apartment because it is a significant upgrade from her last home - a tent she lived in for six weeks last year in a friend's backyard.
Tobey said she could use a bailout like the one Congress is drafting for Wall Street.
"That would be nice," Tobey said. "Like having a sugar daddy."
FAIR USE NOTICE. This document may contain copyrighted material the use of which may not have been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. Tenants Together is making this article available on our website in an effort to advance the understanding of tenant rights issues in California. We believe that this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the U.S. Copyright Law. If you wish to use this copyrighted material for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use,' you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.