EDITORIAL:

No news flash here: We’re in hard times.

Depending on whom you listen to, we’re in a recession, headed for a recession or spiraling into a depression.

Even in affluent Newport Beach we’re seeing homes foreclose and businesses shutter.

In other words, you couldn’t pick a worse time to raise rents. Put another way, if you’re a senior citizen on a fixed income, a rent hike hurts — and might even force you out of your home.

Sixty-five-year-old Iris Brazil is just such a senior. She was notified that her rent will increase from $951 to $1,023 next month. Doesn’t seem like much, does it? Seventy-two bucks, to be exact. But, for Brazil, it could mean the difference between living in Newport Beach and living in, say, Garden Grove.

Brazil said she paid $744 when she moved into the complex in 2006 and that the increases in her Social Security payments have not kept pace with costs.

Hers is not an extraordinary story.

“We have some very elderly people who live here, and it would be traumatic if they had to move — they’re not going to find anything cheaper around here,” Brazil said.

Some seniors might, as a matter of fact, have to apply for Section B rental assistance, a federal program that provides rent vouchers to low-income households.

That would be a shame.

That’s why we’re urging Bayview Landing, the senior housing complex in which Brazil lives, to reconsider rent hikes, at least for now. Bayview offers 120 units of affordable housing for seniors in Newport. The complex was financed by state tax credits and a loan from the city when it was built at Jamboree Road and Back Bay Drive two years ago.

It was a superb project driven by, at least in part, a noble purpose.

We’re not privy to Bayview’s books and what kind of financial stresses it faces, but we hope operators can find it in their hearts to stay true to the original intent of this endeavor: affordable housing for senior citizens.