Bryant-Vanalden Strategy Criticized : Opponents Say Existing Law, Not Eviction, Can Curb Area’s Crime and Blight

Los Angeles City Councilman Hal Bernson, in seeking to evict all 3,000 residents from a troubled neighborhood in his Northridge district, has contended that he has tried just about everything possible under existing law to clean up the area, but crime and unsightly conditions persist.

Bernson’s critics, however, have questioned whether the city has done all it can to improve the Bryant Street-Vanalden Avenue area.

Questions have emerged in the wake of the City Council’s initial approval in early August of an unprecedented plan by Bernson that would make it easier to evict the predominantly low-income Latinos living in the Bryant-Vanalden apartments. The plan, which must go back to the council for another vote before it can be implemented, has been criticized by civil rights and tenant groups as racist and illegal.

Under the plan, the City Council would grant owners of the 30 buildings a one-time exemption to the city rent-control law, allowing them to evict tenants if they will spend $7,500 to renovate an apartment--instead of the $10,000 now required--in order to attract what a council committee report called “a different class of people.”

$40-Million Bond Issue

The plan, which also calls for a $40-million tax-exempt bond issue to finance renovations, is expected to transform the neighborhood into a gated, middle-class community.

One of the major objections to the plan, raised by Councilman Ernani Bernardi, is that the city should be able to deal with problems in the area by enforcing existing laws against crime and substandard housing.

Bernson has contended that he has tried to do this, but with limited success.

Ted Goldstein, an administrative aide to City Atty. James K. Hahn, said Bernson had been “very vigilant” in working with the city attorney’s office to try to enforce laws already on the books “to keep this area up to a standard that does exist in the larger Northridge area.”

Goldstein said Bernson has brought the problems to the attention of the departments of building and safety and health, the city attorney’s office, the Fire and Police departments and Immigration and Naturalization Service. “All have been into the area,” Goldstein said. “There have been literally hundreds of citations issued.” He said that, although most of the violations have been corrected, “the problems begin to amass again.”

Sweep for Violations

Bernson, for example, led city and county inspectors on a sweep through the area in October, 1981, when inspectors issued 3,000 citations for such health and safety violations as broken windows, torn carpeting, stopped-up toilets and cockroach infestations.

All of those violations were corrected, city building inspector Lamond Powell said.

But, Bernson has contended, many of the violations have reappeared.

Powell said he has “no idea” whether all 650 Bryant-Vanalden apartments are currently in compliance with the required housing standards. He said he does not have time to routinely inspect the buildings.

City building inspectors disputed references to the Bryant-Vanalden area as a slum, saying that most building code violations found there are minor, such as broken windows, leaky faucets and “knobs off kitchen cabinets.”

A Relative ‘Garden Spot’

They said that, although the area is run-down in contrast with the surrounding middle-class neighborhood, it is no different and, in some cases, better than many other parts of Los Angeles, particularly the inner city.

“In certain parts of the city, that area would be a garden spot,” Powell said. “But in Bernson’s area, it is less than desirable.”

This, said Frank Kroeger, general manager of the Department of Building and Safety, is one reason why he is unwilling to assign his limited staff to conduct routine inspections of the area.

Bernson has argued that, no matter how many citations the city issues, the neighborhood, as presently constituted, will remain an eyesore. Buildings are constantly fixed up only to become run-down again, he has said.

Bernson, who is out of the country on vacation, could not be reached for comment this week. His aides refused to comment.

‘It’s a People Problem’

Frank Listick, who enforces laws for the county Department of Health Services requiring sanitary living conditions in dwellings, agreed with Bernson. “You issue an order to clean up trash. It gets corrected,” said Listick, who declined to take a position on the mass eviction plan. “You go back a month later, and you have the same problem all over again.”

“It’s a people problem,” said Jim Carney, a supervising building inspector. “The people are bad.”

“Tenants throw garbage out the window,” Listick added.

Patricia Clemens, head of the city attorney’s task force that prosecutes slumlords, said landlords can, under existing law, evict troublesome renters. The task force has not been involved in the Bryant-Vanalden area because it deals with serious health hazards, such as lack of heat or water in apartments. This hasn’t been the case in Northridge, Goldstein said.

“The law allows very little excuse on the part of the property owner,” Clemens said. “If there are tenants out there who are causing problems, it’s up to the property owner to get rid of them.”

Lance Robbins, a major apartment owner in the Bryant-Vanalden area who has worked closely with Bernson in promoting the mass eviction plan, said it is difficult to meet the legal requirements for evicting tenants, namely proving that they committed a crime or destroyed property.

Tenants in the Bryant-Vanalden area, many of whom are illegal aliens, refuse to complain about other tenants for fear of deportation or retaliation, Robbins said.

“I can’t tell you how many times I’ve wanted to get rid of a bad tenant but couldn’t put together a good case to do it,” said Robbins, who is also an attorney. “The practicalities don’t match up with the law.”

‘I Tell Them to Move’

However, Emile Sauer, another apartment owner in the area, said he has no problem in evicting bad tenants.

“I don’t have any bad tenants,” he said. “If I have any problems with my tenants, I tell them to move.”

Listick suggested that one solution to the area’s problems would be a “change in attitude”--greater concern for the neighborhood--on the part of the people living there. He cited as steps in this direction recent efforts by the tenants to clean up trash and organize a Neighborhood Watch crime-prevention program.

On Thursday, about 100 residents met for the third time since the plan was introduced and vowed to continue the trash cleanup campaign they began 10 days ago.

Residents want “to set an example for the owners that we can keep our area clean,” said Maria Morales, a tenants group leader.

Outsiders Blamed

Another tenant, Angela Aragon, said, “If we don’t fight for ourselves, no one will. We are going to demonstrate that we are not all thieves. We are humble people, honorable people, and we will defend our homes.”

Sauer said a lot of the area’s problems are caused by outsiders, over which neither the tenants nor the landlords has control.

Goldstein also blamed many of the neighborhood’s problems on absentee landlords who have “inadequate or incompetent management,” a problem that landlords say exists because they cannot find good managers who want to live in Bryant-Vanalden.

Another problem in the area is crowding, a situation that Bernson and Robbins contend they cannot correct under existing law.

Robbins said the crime and deterioration are caused by large numbers of families living in apartments. He said it is not uncommon to find 10 people living in a two-bedroom apartment in the area.

Crowding Called Hard to Prove

“The problem is not run-down buildings,” Robbins said. “It’s the way the people live in them, and the number who live in there.” He likened the environment to “too many rats in a cage.”

Although there are laws limiting the occupancy of dwellings, city officials said they have been unable to do anything about the crowding because it is hard to prove.

“When we find 15 people in an apartment, the tenants tell us, ‘They’re just visiting,’ ” Powell said. “How do we prove otherwise?”

Bernson has said that he also tried to reduce crime through normal channels, such as stepping up police patrols.

The apartment owners hired a private security patrol firm for three months last year. But, Robbins said, “The security guards, after getting shot at a couple of times, didn’t want to stick around.”

‘Special Problems Unit’

About a year ago, the Los Angeles Police Department established a foot patrol in the area on Friday and Saturday nights. Capt. Mark Stevens, who works in the Northridge area, said he has a “special problems unit” consisting of eight officers who often go into the Bryant-Vanalden area. Stevens said the department, with Bernson’s office, has offered educational programs such as field trips for youths living in the Bryant-Vanalden area. These efforts have reduced crime, Police Chief Daryl F. Gates said. Gates, in a letter sent to Bernson last November, said crime in the area was down more than 18% in the first 10 months of 1984 compared to the same period a year earlier.

But Stevens likened the crime-fighting effort to “shoveling sand against the tide.”

“We throw in all this manpower in there, manpower being taken away from other areas,” he said, but “we’re not having the impact we’d like.”

Despite his misgivings, in response to growing demands from neighbors for increased police protection, Stevens announced this week that he has ordered stepped-up patrols in the area during weekends and night hours and that a lieutenant has been assigned full time to coordinate periodic task force sweeps with Valley narcotic and traffic units.

Crackdown on Illegal Aliens

Although Stevens said he does not have additional officers to deploy in the area, he said “all available resources” in the Devonshire Division will be focused on the three-block Bryant-Vanalden area.

As part of the effort, he said, available patrol cars will be directed to cruise through the development. Police also will contact INS officials in an effort to crack down on the dozens of men, most believed to be illegal aliens, who gather along the streets in the area for day labor.

“We have half a dozen programs going on in the area. Maybe this one will work better,” Stevens said. “What it would really take to turn it around is eight officers a shift, working just that area for a significant amount of time.”

Bernson has proposed that the Police Department send a task force into the area similar to the 29-member task force assigned last September to the high-crime Nickerson Gardens housing project in South-Central Los Angeles.

Debate Over Task Force

However, Deputy Police Chief Dan Sullivan, in charge of the department’s Valley operations, said, “Putting 20 people down there isn’t going to solve the problem.

“What you have to do is make the place into a location where the bad guys don’t want to go,” he said. “The solution is not to keep inundating it with police. The solution is to get rid of it.”

Whether a task force in Bryant-Vanalden would do any good is, in any case, academic, police say, because they can’t spare the officers to staff it without leaving other areas unprotected.

Those responsible for enforcing criminal laws and building and health codes disagree as to whether they could do more under existing law to improve the Bryant-Vanalden area.

“Strict enforcement of the law is not the answer to solve the problems in this kind of area,” Listick said.

Responsible Management Urged

Goldstein, a former deputy to Bernson and his predecessor on the council, Robert M. Wilkinson, said he is familiar with the area’s problems, adding, “Existing ordinances should be able to deal quite adequately with the Bryant-Vanalden area.

“The best way to deal with the area is to have landlords provide for continued maintenance and responsible management,” Goldstein said. If they don’t, he said, they can be prosecuted. As to the landlords’ complaints that they will fix up buildings only to have them become run-down again, Goldstein said, “That’s the cost of doing business.”

“I think the problems can be addressed under existing law,” Stevens said. “But it requires a huge manpower investment. Not only with the Police Department but with all city entities.” Stevens said he doubts that the city could afford to make such an investment.