"Finding Common Ground" Forum

Dear Friends,

Thank you so much for helping to make yesterday’s Housing Forum a success! We are excited that so many of you took time from your busy Wednesday to join us in the spirit of understanding and cooperation.

Please take a few moments to answer these questions for us so we can learn and improve future programs for the public. Your feedback is VERY important to us!

1. What were your overall impressions of the event?
2. What were your favorite parts? Why?
3. What things would you change or improve? Why?

Thank you again for your time.

Sincerely,


Deborah Freeman, Legal Assistant
Santa Monica City Attorney's Office

Dear Deborah,

Thank you for the event at the Annenberg Community Beach House today. It was a nice venue and a nice idea to have a beginning of dialogue about actual compromise and meeting of those who are most polarized in this city. Some compromising may eventually come of it. There were opportunities for sharing that may lead to more understanding and useful compromises in the future.

I frequently work hard to find common ground with my tenants (customers really) by listening and trying to learn what they really need or are on about. And in return managing their expectations of what I can do for them. Housing providers are not the everything solution to all the ills of the world in which we live. And some in the community feel we are the worst thing and use a term like Landlord with all the old worst connotations that they can attach to it. As if all landlords are a Charles Dickens character.

And therefore the “Landlord” term may make finding common ground hard for those who do not trust that a Housing Provider is a professional businessperson who does have good intentions to live up to the business relationship with the tenant.

In overview… One or two questions that were posed to the panel may be the hot items that you deal with on a regular basis but are not ones that landlords ( I prefer Housing Providers) are able to help solve. In many cases the smoking issue is one that we cannot regulate. And the common complaint about noise is often beyond the pale of our control. The only item in the post seminar discussion panel questions section that seemed on point was the one related to maintenance. And of course as asked – relating to a new owner – it was about giving the owner a chance to effect repairs and communications going back and forth so that the tenants know what to expect and what the new housing provider will be working on first. The opinion of one fellow property manager in attendance was that 3 of the 4 questions posed were absolutely useless to the property owner side of the issue. After fully reviewing your web site I see that those are the items that were most important to the Consumer Affairs division but not necessarily related to "Finding Common Ground" between landlord and tenant.

I hope that in the long term these meetings can work on problems that we (Tenants and Owners/Management) have to deal with and will actually make a difference. The difficulty to be overcome was evidenced by one of your lead speakers. It was said by the City of Santa Monica elected official who spoke, that he did not believe there was room for compromise on this issue. It is not just the Housing Provider side that must be brought to the table with an understanding of what effective and beneficial thing can come of this.

Such Polarization and refusal to deal with issues is very tough for us. My expenses are up. Much of it is due to new city fees and city taxes. Yet there was not an appropriate place in yesterday’s meeting to review that. The Housing Providers are not able to be the solution to all of societal ills. Smoking or bad behaviors between neighbors are just the tip of the iceberg.

I look forward to future meetings like this where there are more insights to each other’s side in the future.

Sincerely,

Keith Lambert