Bryant-Vanalden Tenants Complain : Eviction by Intimidation Charged

About 30 residents of the Bryant-Vanalden area apartments in Northridge contended Tuesday that they are being harassed into moving by managers of the city-backed $25-million renovation effort there.

Marching outside Councilman Hal Bernson’s Northridge office with signs decrying “illegal evictions” and “Hitler tactics,” the residents handed out flyers criticizing methods they say the city is sanctioning in turning the run-down neighborhood into a gated community called “Park Parthenia.”

“The managers are evicting the tenants without attempting to help them relocate to the same apartment or other apartments,” the group’s statement said. “They seem to be only interested in evicting the tenants and not relocating them.”

City officials and the project’s developer denied the charges.

The 48 buildings in the Bryant Street and Vanalden Avenue neighborhood, home to perhaps 3,000 low-income Latinos, lie in the middle of an otherwise fashionable suburban area. For years, neighbors have complained of criminal activity spilling over from the apartments, and Bernson has made cleaning up the area a high priority since he was elected in 1979.

Bernson, who drew fire two years ago for a proposal that would have cleared the way for mass evictions at the project, was not at his office Tuesday, but an aide said tenants had not asked for a meeting with him before the picketing began.

An organizer of the demonstration complained that the councilman and his staff are insensitive to the tenants.

“He acts like the people here are untouchables,” said Eugene Hernandez, of the San Fernando Valley Concilio of Hispanic Affairs. “He can’t come out and give a decent response the way he would if we were middle-class, white housewives.”

Hernandez and the tenants said they want to meet with Bernson and other officials to clarify procedures on eviction and relocation.

On-site managers have threatened to have tenants, many of them illegal aliens from El Salvador and Mexico, deported unless they leave, Hernandez said.

“Some of these are illiterate, frightened people,” he said. “They don’t know the processes of the law, and the managers intimidate them.”

The group said some residents have been relocated to filthy and unsanitary apartments while their own are being repaired.

“They said they’d put our things on the street unless we accepted this one,” said tenant Lady Herrera as she walked through the three-bedroom unit that she said she would share with eight relatives temporarily. The carpet was dirty, the toilet leaky, the sills crumbling and the smell of sewage overpowering in the dark apartment.

“We didn’t have a choice,” Herrera, a worker in a cosmetics factory, said through an interpreter.

Ralph Esparza, housing director the city’s Community Development Department, acknowledged that tenants cannot expect “a Class A” unit while their own is being fixed up. But he insisted that no family would be placed in an unhealthy setting, and said an inspector was on the way to investigate Herrera’s claim.

Esparza also denied that any harassment was taking place. One family has been evicted for failure to pay rent, and eviction proceedings have been started against another 20 families for nonpayment of rent and other causes, he said. Three-bedroom apartments rent for about $500 a month.

“But, overall, we don’t want the tenants to leave. We don’t want the tenants displaced,” Esparza said, adding that rent subsidies have been given to about 20 families who have chosen to leave the complex.

Tenants who choose to stay will not be in temporary quarters for long, he said. “We’re on a very precise construction schedule,” he stressed.

Developer Dave Vadhera also denied that there was any harassment of tenants.

“We’re not intimidating anybody, and we’re not forcing anybody to move,” he said.

“I’m at a loss. These people have said nothing to our managers, and we have an on-site staff of 12 to 16 employees.”