Rental Housing Inspections

* Your unfortunate characterization of an “epidemic of slum housing” in your Nov. 14 editorial illustrates a failure to do your homework. Federal Census Bureau statistics from 1995 demonstrate that despite all the problems facing our local economy, the percentage of substandard housing is on the decline in Los Angeles.

This universal inspection program was tried in San Francisco. It was abandoned as a failure because the building inspectors, out of a fear for their very lives, spent a disproportionate share of time nit-picking minor problems in otherwise clean and habitable apartments in “safe” neighborhoods.

We are shocked to see that The Times, always a champion of civil and constitutional rights, would condone and urge a scheme of warrantless searches of tenant homes, often accompanied by a LAPD officer. It was due to this unconstitutional violation of individual tenants’ rights that a universal inspection program was declared unconstitutional in New Orleans. The tax to be imposed on owners is in violation of Prop. 218, which requires a two-thirds vote of the affected electorate.

None of our 25,000 members condone slumlords and it is for that reason that we urge the adoption of the successful substitute program used in San Francisco, which avoids the numerous constitutional problems and achieves results.

CHARLES A. ISHAM

Executive Vice President

Apartment Assn. of Greater L.A.