LAKE ELSINORE --- While homeowners are savoring the fruits of a real estate bonanza, for people like Frank Estrada, the boom times leave little to relish.

As landlords raise rents -- experts say there is a strong correlation between house prices and rental rates -- many of their low-income tenants make do with fewer and fewer dollars for essentials such as food, medicine and electricity.

Estrada, 77, lives alone and survives on the $810 he receives each month from the Social Security Administration. He would earn more, he said, but he decided to retire at the age of 62.

"I didn't think I would live this long," he said.

Until February, he was paying $500 a month in rent and utilities on a small bungalow near the northeast corner of Lake Elsinore.

But, in February, his landlord hit him with a double whammy: He was raising the rent by $100 a month and selling the house to boot.

Now, when Estrada receives his Social Security check at the first of the month, the first thing he does is start searching for a new place to live, he said. But in the months since his landlord broke the news, he hasn't been able to find anything to rent for that amount, Estrada added.

He sat in the shade of a pomegranate tree on a recent afternoon, petting his dog, Boo. It's a tremendous sacrifice to buy food for the dog, Estrada said, but "this is the only faithful guy in Lake Elsinore -- I can't leave him behind."

Estrada, who is partially blind, gave up taking the heart medications he needs long ago, he said. Most of his food and toiletries, he receives from local charity Helping Our People in Elsinore, he added.

After paying his rent and utility bill, he goes shopping for fresh fruit and vegetables and perhaps some meat at a nearby supermarket -- but you can only stretch $210 so far, Estrada said.

"The first thing I look for is what is under a dollar," he said. "I save up my pennies, dimes and quarters -- that is how I survive."

He spends many of his days hanging out at the Lake Elsinore Senior Center, he said.

"There are hundreds of other seniors like me in the same position," he said.

Rising rents

Rising real estate values -- the average price of a home in Lake Elsinore has risen by 37.4 percent in the past year -- have hit some low-income families and seniors hard, said Gail Williams, a broker specializing in rental properties with Lake Elsinore's Century 21 Premier Real Estate.

"Low-income individuals have a terrible time finding something to rent; those (renters) are almost out of the market -- what little market there is," Williams said.

"Rents are increasing substantially," she said, adding that she did not have specific numbers available on how much prices have spiked.

Feeding those increases is a hot market for home sales, with many rental property owners deciding to cash out, while other investors are buying into an equally hot investment-property market, she said.

The new buyers often are forced to raise the rent in order to pay the heftier mortgage payments on the now more expensive homes, Williams said.

Renters have no choice but to pay the higher rent or move out, she added.

But when they begin searching for another rental similar in size, they quickly find they can't get as much, if anything, for their money.

"Five hundred dollars isn't going to rent anything," Williams said.

Valley Real Estate in Lake Elsinore has about 100 rental listings, according to administrative assistant Mary Kate Jones. She said that she has observed two trends in the past few years: a shrinking number of homes for rent -- she had a stock of 200 houses available five years ago -- and an increase in rents.

In the past two years, the lowest rent on a two-bedroom house in the Lake Elsinore area has risen from about $600 to around $900, she said. She said that, at the moment, she has just one dwelling available in the $600 price range: a one-bedroom, one-bath mobile home -- no pets or smokers allowed.

Retiree Minnie Brown knows only too well how the resale of a home can translate to higher rents.

The 73-year-old woman survives on a civil-service pension of $1,385 a month, she said. About a year ago, she rented a small two-bedroom house on Langstaff Street in Lake Elsinore, in an older part of town. The rent was $650 a month, about half her monthly income.

Then, in October, the home was sold. The new owner raised the rent to $800, she said, and the $150 increase has been tough on her.

"One month I have 75 cents left at the end of the month, the next month, it's a dollar-fifty," Brown said. "I am very fortunate that I don't have to take any more medicine than I do, because I would be up the creek."

The flip side

Brown's landlords are Katherine and Dennis O'Donoghue. Dennis is an engineer and Katherine is a schoolteacher. They have two young children.

"We have worked really hard for what we have," Katherine O'Donoghue said last week.

She said that mortgage and insurance payments on the rental property run about $850 a month. But that doesn't include maintenance, she said, adding that they recently had major plumbing expenses at the house and had to put to a new roof on the garage.

While she and her husband sympathize with Brown and other low-income renters, her first obligation is to her own family, O'Donoghue said.

"I have children that I want to go to college, that will want to buy a home some day," she said.

When she and her husband retire, they don't want to have only a Social Security check to support themselves, O'Donoghue said.

"We are planning for the future, so we don't end up like these poor low-income elderly folks," she said.

The most recent statistics on poverty levels in Lake Elsinore come from the 2000 U.S. Census. The numbers show that in 1999, 14.7 percent of families and 12.1 percent of seniors in the city were living below the poverty level of $8,350 a year for one person and $17,050 for a family of four. And 35.6 percent of the city's renters were spending 35 percent or more of their family income on rent.

The county's Department of Social Services is seeing an increasing number of homeless seniors, said Cathy Welborn, administrative manager for homeless programs with the agency.

"I attribute that to housing prices that are on the rise," Welborn said last week.

Most people become homeless because they are unable to pay their rent and are evicted, she said. Once homeless, they often go to a county shelter. Eventually, many of them are able to get back on their feet by getting a job and saving up the money for their first month's rent and security deposit, Welborn said. But because of their previous eviction, many potential landlords turn them away, she added.

Affordable housing fund

Lake Elsinore's redevelopment agency is required by state law to set aside 20 percent of the property tax revenue it receives each year to build affordable housing for moderate- and low-income families. Since the 1980s, however, the agency has used that money instead for other expenditures, things such as paying off bond debt, city officials say.

For years, the city had defended the practice, saying Lake Elsinore had an ample stock of older, inexpensive houses for rent. But with rising real estate values, the number of homes that poor residents can afford is diminishing, according to real estate experts. The city currently owes about $8 million or $9 million to the housing fund, City Manager Dick Watenpaugh said last week.

That red ink may soon begin to diminish, however, he added. Increased property values have also resulted in more property tax revenue for redevelopment agency coffers, he said, and city officials recently began looking at setting up a plan to begin repaying the money to the fund.

As a result, the city may soon be able to start financing some low-income housing units, he added.

Plea for help

But Estrada wonders whether help will come in time for him, he says.

On April 27, he stood before the City Council and bared his soul to council members, pleading for help.

During the public comment portion of each City Council meeting, speakers normally must limit their comments to three minutes. On that night, however, Estrada spoke for nearly 11 minutes, holding the council and audience members spellbound with his tale.

He spoke of how his landlord had threatened him with eviction if he didn't begin paying the $100 increase in his rent. He begged the council to do something to help him and other seniors by building small, affordable cottages in the city -- a place where they could spend the rest of their days.

"I don't want to be a burden to the city, but I need help," Estrada said to the council. At one point, he had to stop speaking because he was shaking.

"I am very stressed out and can hardly sleep at night," Estrada said.

As the months roll by without a resolution to his dilemma, Estrada says he is losing hope. He said that sometimes, he even thinks about taking Boo and going out by the lakeshore to lie on a blanket under a tree and wait for death to take him.

"If I have to, I'll do it," he said. "I'm at the end of my rope."

Contact staff writer William Finn Bennett at (909) 676-4315, Ext. 2624, or wbennett@californian.com.