Slum Tenants Demonstrate at Landlord’s Home

Chanting “Family yes, Esposito no,” 150 sign-carrying men, women and children startled a quiet, upper-class Villa Park neighborhood Sunday by holding a noisy demonstration outside a home belonging to Carmine Esposito, a Santa Ana landlord who is the target of a rent strike protesting the run-down condition of several of his apartment buildings.

Esposito, who had been warned of the protest, was not at the Carmel Drive house where he lives with his son and three roommates. The younger Esposito, Randy, was away at a tennis tournament, residents said.

One of the Villa Park home’s residents, Gary Milhoan, is an employee of Esposito’s construction company.

“I think they’re wasting their time,” Milhoan said, nodding toward the Spanish-speaking demonstrators outside his home. “All the work is going to be taken care of, starting tomorrow.”

Rent Withheld

Milhoan was referring to repair work on six of Esposito’s apartment buildings on West Brook Street in Santa Ana where tenants are withholding rent in an effort to force Esposito to fix up the structures.

Many of those tenants took part in Sunday’s demonstration. Others came from other slum dwellings in Santa Ana, according to Nativo Lopez, a spokesman for the David Coalition for Housing, the tenants’ rights group that organized the protest.

Lopez said the demonstrators had chosen the Villa Park home for the protest “to highlight the dichotomy between the luxurious conditions where Esposito lives, on one hand, and the squalor in which he forces his tenants to live, on the other.”

The Brook Street tenants are demanding that criminal charges be brought against their landlord, “just like the city would bring against any other criminal,” Lopez said.

Repairs Promised

Esposito, who also owns property in Garden Grove’s Buena Clinton neighborhood, has promised to make repairs on the Santa Ana apartment buildings immediately.

“Hopefully, once we get the city’s approval, we can start (repairs) by next week,” he said after a meeting with tenants last Monday.

Before the afternoon calm was broken by the chants of the demonstrators, almost the only sound that could be heard was a gentle breeze rustling through eucalyptus trees in the expensive neighborhood. Several neighbors stood by, watching the peaceful but disruptive demonstration along with Orange County sheriff’s deputies and reporters. Some seemed baffled by the protest, calling it out of place.

“I don’t really like it, but there’s nothing I can do about it,” Milhoan said.

But one woman who lives nearby said she thought the demonstrators “have the right to do whatever is going to work for them.”

“More power to them,” she added, while taking snapshots of the marchers.

With the help of the David Coalition and the unofficial support of Santa Ana City Hall, the Brook Street tenants launched their rent strike against Esposito early last month. The city had ordered Esposito to begin repairs on the dilapidated dwellings months earlier, but he had not complied, officials said.

Since then, the city has filed several civil lawsuits against Esposito, and he has obtained permits to repair two of the six apartment buildings.