Permit doesn’t ensure a good place to park

By Mike Trask (contact)

Sunday, Nov. 25, 2007 | 1:49 a.m.

Alma Awerbach's major inconvenience in life is one of the same issues that bugs apartment dwellers across the valley - her covered parking spot is more than 100 feet from her apartment.

It's especially frustrating for Awerbach, who's 85 with a bum hip.

She has a handicapped parking permit, but that doesn't do anything to reduce the trek from her home to her car because the closest handicapped parking spots in her Las Vegas seniors' complex are about 50 feet farther away than her covered space.

Plus, the handicapped spots are uncovered and nobody likes hopping into a car that feels like a kiln during the brutal summers.

This conundrum has left Awerbach limping to and from her unit each day.

"I only go out once a day," she said, sitting in her Sunrise Palms apartment off Charleston Boulevard on the east side of Las Vegas. "It's not enough."

There appear to be unused covered spots near the elevator close to her apartment. But the apartment complex management has so far refused to give her one of those spots.

"They've decided to do nothing," Awerbach said. "I'm angry about it. I'd love to see them fined for it."

The handicapped parking rules for residential complexes fall under the Fair Housing Act and require 2 percent of parking spaces serving residents to be designated handicapped.

The problem, some say, is that the law does not specify where those spots should be.

Sunrise Palms has 122 covered parking spots. None is marked handicapped.

It also has more than 100 uncovered spots, four of which are marked handicapped. Two are in front near the leasing office and two are in the rear of the complex.

Because only the 122 covered spots may be considered residents' primary parking spaces, theoretically there are enough handicapped spots.

"It can get very complicated," said Barbara Chandler, project director of the Boston-based Fair Housing Accessibility FIRST, an initiative sponsored by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development to promote compliance with the Fair Housing Act.

What's not complicated is that Awerbach's apartment is far from her parking spot and even farther from the handicapped parking.

There is nothing that mandates a handicapped spot near every apartment building, Chandler said. But there are laws that require reasonable modifications to ensure equal opportunity access for disabled people.

"Changing which parking space is hers certainly seems like the kind of modification the law requires," said Marilyn Golden, a policy analyst at the Disability Rights Education and Defense Fund, a national civil rights law and policy center. "To give someone a parking space they can use, when the assigned one is too far away for them due to their disability, I would say this is required."

Sunrise Palms is a 122-unit complex built in 2001 and managed by the California-based Fore Property Co., which oversees nine rental complexes in the valley.

Scott Hamblin, regional manager, said it's the company's policy not to change assigned parking spots and noted that many of the Sunrise Palms residents have handicapped permits.

"This is a seniors complex," he said. "It's conceivable that most of the residents would need handicapped parking."

Nevertheless, he said there are no plans to add handicapped spots.

Awerbach moved into her $719-per-month, two-bedroom unit in June. She admittedly never asked about where she had to park when she signed her one-year lease.

Hamblin said he sent a notice asking whether people would be willing to trade spots with Awerbach, but nobody took the offer. He also has offered to release Awerbach from her lease without penalty. "She's not willing to compromise," he said. "She's not the most easy person to deal with."

But the widow has little desire to move again. She just wants to park a little closer to her apartment and continue to enjoy her golden years.

She figures it wouldn't be difficult for the management to slap down some blue paint for a couple extra handicapped spaces near her building - or allow her to swap spots with somebody.

"I won't take it," the Bronx, N.Y., native said. "I'm a fighter."