100 Left Homeless After County Condemns Dirty, Jerry-Built ‘Apartments’
More than 100 people--including families with children--were left homeless Tuesday after county authorities condemned a shabby collection of squalid, jerry-built apartments they had been renting in the Willowbrook area for as much as $350 a month.
The substandard dwellings--rows of long, low sheds divided into small rooms behind older single-family homes--were built without permits and appeared to be still under construction, although they had been occupied for years. Several families lived crowded together in each of the 20 so-called apartments, renting a bedroom each and sharing the bathroom and kitchen with the other occupants.
“In Mexico, even in the worst barrios , you live in better conditions than this,” said Salvador, 18, who like several of his Latino neighbors--all in the country illegally--asked that his full name not be used. “We stayed because we couldn’t afford anything else. Here at least they didn’t ask for first and last month’s rent. . . .”
Mixed Reactions
The eviction drew mixed reactions from bewildered tenants who felt little sympathy for their landlord’s predicament. He had long ignored their repeated requests for repairs, they said.
But, they were all startled at suddenly finding themselves on the street.
“Why didn’t the housing inspectors come around from time to time and force the landlord to maintain the building?” asked Marta Ruiz, standing outside the apartments from which her nephew and brother had been evicted. “Instead, from one minute to the next, without warning, people are evicted and left homeless.”
Los Angeles County authorities posted condemnation notices two weeks ago at the substandard buildings in the 2300 block of East 130th Street. But the Spanish-speaking residents did not understand them, they said.
Eviction Notice
Even if they did, added another resident, “most places give you at least a month and often three-months eviction notice.”
County fire and building and safety officials arrived at the apartments Tuesday morning to begin evicting the residents and boarding up the apartments they considered fire hazards.
The officials said the structures are substandard in many respects, including electrical wiring and the lack of fire walls, proper doors and illegally vented heaters and water heaters.
If the property owner is unable to bring the buildings up to standard, he will be asked to remove them, a building and safety official said.
“These buildings can’t be brought up to code,” said Marcine Shaw, a senior field deputy for Supervisor Kenneth Hahn, who said her office was coordinating Tuesday’s activities. “They were built without permits; they’re something he (the owner) just threw up.”
The property owner, Jose Garcia, said through an interpreter that he does not think the structures are unsafe, although he concedes that some “do need repairs.” Garcia confirmed that there were 104 tenants at the properties, but he said most were not paying any rent at all.
While some of the evicted tenants conceded that Garcia did not charge extra when newly arrived relatives from Mexico stayed temporarily with them, they said they, themselves, paid more than enough.
Claudio Jaimes, 30, said through an interpreter that he and his 27-year-old wife, Marta, and their four children have been living for the past 15 months in a single 10-foot-square, room for which they pay $200 a month. He said he is currently unemployed, living off what he can make collecting aluminum cans while looking for a job.
As county maintenance people began boarding up the apartment entrances with plywood Tuesday morning, residents began packing up their meager belongings in cardboard boxes and plastic bags. There was little furniture to move. Most of the dwellings contained few items other than a stove, a mattress or two and an occasional television set.
The evicted tenants’ main concern was where they would go from here.
“They evict you all of a sudden and you have nowhere to go,” said Cirilo, 21, who shared a room in the building complex with his brother-in-law. “They say they’re going to help us with some shelter, but it will only be for a while.”
Shaw said that the county’s Social Services Department was working Tuesday with private agencies trying to find temporary shelter for the evicted tenants.
One young man was given a voucher to sleep at a Salvation Army facility. But Roberto Jimenez, 24, said he does not think he will take them up on the offer. He said he does not want to take his family to a downtown Skid Row shelter, he said, particularly if, as officials have told him, he and his wife would have to stay at separate facilities.
“It’s really tough for the people with families,” said Jimenez, who with his wife and sister rented a one-room apartment at the complex for $275 per month.
“I’m going to start calling on my friends to see where I can borrow some money to rent a room,” he said.
