Digital Dilemma
Skid Row Sees Trouble With TV Signal Switch
by Ryan Vaillancourt
Downtown LA News
2/23/2009
DOWNTOWN LOS ANGELES - When Congress approved a plan requiring television stations to switch their broadcasting signal from analog to digital in 2009, the legislation included $1.5 billion in coupons to help consumers purchase the device needed to accommodate the conversion.
After consumers lined up en masse for the rebates, Congress pushed back the initial Feb. 17 deadline by four months to give unprepared people more time. But the extension may be delaying an inevitable problem for many Skid Row residents whose requests for a digital converter box coupon are being denied.
The $40 coupons are intended to help people who rely on "rabbit ears" and other antennas to watch television cover the cost of the $50 to $70 digital converter boxes.
More than 100 Skid Row residents have applied for coupons in recent months, only to learn that inhabitants of most Single Room Occupancy housing - the area's predominant type of permanent housing - are ineligible, said Shannon Parker, a grant writer for the nonprofit Skid Row Housing Trust and chair of the Downtown Los Angeles Neighborhood Council's affordable housing committee.
The legislation that created the coupon program offers the discount to all households, but its definition of "household" excludes residential units that do not have individual mailing addresses. Unlike apartment and condominium complexes, in most SROs residents live in their own unit but do not have an individual mailbox. Instead, a building manager distributes mail, Parker said.
Read the full article here.
by Ryan Vaillancourt
Downtown LA News
2/23/2009
DOWNTOWN LOS ANGELES - When Congress approved a plan requiring television stations to switch their broadcasting signal from analog to digital in 2009, the legislation included $1.5 billion in coupons to help consumers purchase the device needed to accommodate the conversion.
After consumers lined up en masse for the rebates, Congress pushed back the initial Feb. 17 deadline by four months to give unprepared people more time. But the extension may be delaying an inevitable problem for many Skid Row residents whose requests for a digital converter box coupon are being denied.
The $40 coupons are intended to help people who rely on "rabbit ears" and other antennas to watch television cover the cost of the $50 to $70 digital converter boxes.
More than 100 Skid Row residents have applied for coupons in recent months, only to learn that inhabitants of most Single Room Occupancy housing - the area's predominant type of permanent housing - are ineligible, said Shannon Parker, a grant writer for the nonprofit Skid Row Housing Trust and chair of the Downtown Los Angeles Neighborhood Council's affordable housing committee.
The legislation that created the coupon program offers the discount to all households, but its definition of "household" excludes residential units that do not have individual mailing addresses. Unlike apartment and condominium complexes, in most SROs residents live in their own unit but do not have an individual mailbox. Instead, a building manager distributes mail, Parker said.
Read the full article here.
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