Squalor Rife at Oft-Cited Trailer Park : Some Work Done; Owner Says He’s Losing Money

The owner of a Pacoima trailer park, which has a 15-year history of health and building and safety violations, has been cited in the past month for 64 new violations of California and Los Angeles County regulations.

Stuart Glazer has been given until July 13 to clear up the problems--which include leaky sewer lines and rodent infestations--at Pacoima Trailer Park, 10641 San Fernando Road, which state and county officials say is typical of much of the housing for the poor in the East San Fernando Valley.

The park is among the most frequently cited properties in the county Department of Health Services’ San Fernando district, which includes Mission Hills and Panorama City as well as the East Valley, said James R. Wilcox, district chief sanitarian. It is in a neighborhood where poor people also live in illegally converted garages and sheds.

Most of the park’s 26 trailers and 11 cabins are barely habitable, Wilcox said, adding: “This is not a Class A place.”

Some Repairs Made

Glazer, of Westlake Village, said some of the more serious violations have been corrected--including leaky sewer lines and fire hazards created by the accumulation of debris behind dryers and by improperly stored liquid petroleum tanks.

But Glazer still must correct a host of other violations. Some are minor problems, such as electrical outlets that need covers. But others are more hazardous, including broken windows, weak flooring and substandard electrical wiring, officials said.

Fifty violations were discovered during a May 22 inspection by officials of the state Department of Housing and Community Development, which regulates trailer and mobile-home parks. Officials ordered an inspection of the site after The Times inquired about its conditions.

In addition, county health authorities, who accompanied state inspectors during the visit, cited the owner twice for sewage leaks and resultant ground contamination. And Tuesday, county inspectors found another 12 health code violations in 11 cabins on the property, including cockroach and rodent infestations, broken windows, deficient kitchen and bathroom plumbing, and holes in walls, doors and floors.

‘Pretty Grim’

“I was shocked at the conditions of some of the trailers. It’s pretty junky; it’s pretty grim,” said Becky Gaba, coordinator of outreach services for MEND, or Meet Each Need With Dignity, a charitable organization.

“Just because someone is not able to pay $800 a month in rent for an apartment doesn’t mean that they need to be forced to live in conditions such as those that have been encountered there,” Gaba said.

Pacoima Trailer Park is home to about 130 people, mostly poor women and their children. The women said they pay about 80% of their incomes for rent--far above figures cited in a 1988 city of Los Angeles study, which showed that renters who earn less than $10,000 a year pay an average of 58% of their incomes for housing.

About 15 families from the trailer park, who recently came to MEND seeking emergency food and clothing, pay from $200 to $640 a month in rent, depending on the size of their units or on the number of years that they have been tenants. Most rents are in the low- to mid-$400 range, the organization said.

MEND volunteers said they regularly bring carloads of groceries to families who do not have enough money for food after they pay their rent.

Upkeep a Struggle

Glazer said it is a struggle to keep the old trailers at the site up to code requirements. If he invested the money necessary to significantly improve the property, he would be forced to raise rents above what the tenants can pay, he said.

Glazer also said abusive tenants compound the problem by damaging units as fast as he can make improvements. Many immigrant tenants do not understand U.S. practices and throw garbage and debris outside the units, he said.

“The people are bred in such a way that it doesn’t make a difference where they put their trash,” Glazer said. “We are doing the best we can with what we have.”

Glazer said he operates the facility at a financial loss and has refused to sell to industrial developers who have approached him. “I am a humanitarian at heart,” he said, adding that he rents the trailers and cabins to “welfare recipients, transients, people who are one step away from being homeless.”

Inspectors are welcome on the property, he said, because citations “help me make my people understand” that the units must be maintained.

Indeed, trailer tenant Maria Rosales, 33, a mother of seven, agreed that some tenants “are dirty and make things bad.”

“But most of us are just poor people trying to help each other out,” said Rosales, who said she signs over her two $316 biweekly welfare checks to pay her $575-a-month rent. The trailer park’s manager gives back the change in cash, she said. The federal government does not restrict the amount of money welfare recipients can spend for housing.

Rosales has lived in her trailer since 1982, when a Pacoima house she rented burned down. Her 2-year-old child has been repeatedly hospitalized with a lung ailment. His condition keeps her from holding a full-time job, Rosales said.

“This is too much rent to pay, but I have no other place, and it is better than the streets,” she said.

Maria Isabel Rivas moved into her $475-a-month trailer two months ago after she was evicted from a $200-a-month apartment on the second floor of a commercial building after it was sold.

Rivas, a Mexican immigrant whose husband abandoned her several years ago, said she and her four U.S.-born children live on $600 a month from the county’s Aid to Families With Dependent Children program. She said she hopes that her recently attained legal residency will allow her to find a job in the area.

‘Best I Can Do’

“This is so ugly; it is so hard to live in here,” Rivas said of the trailer, which state records show had plumbing problems and deteriorating windows, doors and entry steps. “But this is the best I can do unless I try to find a garage or rent a room in a house.”

Rivas and other tenants said they are unable to save enough money to pay security deposits necessary to rent better housing. In addition, they say most landlords will not rent affordable one-bedroom apartments to large families.

Several tenants said they were reluctant to comment on their surroundings for fear of offending park management.

One woman praised park manager Martha Davidson for allowing her to move into a trailer without a security deposit. She said Davidson provided her with a bed, blankets and plates.

“I had nothing when I moved here,” said Marisa Ledesma, who, with her husband, previously rented a room in a house. She said she fled because of marital problems and lived in a convent for several months. “I am thankful to have even this.”

State records since 1974, when the housing department took over inspection of mobile homes and trailer parks, show that the park’s three owners have struggled to keep plumbing, wiring and the trailers up to minimum standards.

Bought in 1985

Glazer bought the property in September, 1985, for $653,000, county tax records show. On May 9, 1986, eight months after the purchase, state authorities--who inspect sites only after receiving citizen complaints--found violations at 20 trailers. Glazer was cited mainly for plumbing problems, such as leaky sewer lines and improperly vented pipes, which can allow noxious sewage gas to enter a unit.

By November, 1986, after two “administrative letters” ordering him to repair the problems within 30 days, all but nine of the violations had been remedied. State records do not show whether the remaining violations, which were mostly at one unit, were corrected.

Last month, four trailers were cited for the same violations as in 1986. One unit did not have entry or exit steps, two had leaky sewage lines and another had an improperly installed water heater, records show.

Glazer attributed some of the problems to tenants allowing children and pets to run roughshod over the property. He said he intends to correct the remaining recent violations, which he describes as “a leak here, an electrical conduit there.”

Glazer said he has tried to make the park cleaner and safer. He said his resident manager has organized a crime watch group, and a full-time repairman works at the site.

Area Cleaned

Several tenants said the park was recently cleared of much debris and garbage, but repairs are often slow in coming.

“My bathroom has been falling apart for a long time,” said Lucia Gonzalez, 28, a mother of three who rents a $440-a-month cabin. A hole in her soggy bathroom floor was covered with a scrap of plywood on a recent visit. At night, she said, she can hear “the rats scratching the boards.”

She came home from her $4.80-an-hour factory job last week to find a broken window, which several days later had not been replaced, she said.

“The rent is high; it’s hard to get improvements,” Gonzalez said. “But I cannot afford an apartment.”

The cabins, originally a motel, appear to fall into a jurisdictional gap when it comes to building and safety codes.

Last week’s county inspections were aimed at eliminating health violations, not structural problems. And the state housing department, which has jurisdiction over such problems at trailers, cannot cite deficiencies at the park’s cabins, said spokeswoman Julie Stewart.

Further, state officials said building and safety codes are regulated by cities. But officials with the city of Los Angeles’ Department of Building and Safety said they do not inspect structures on mobile-home property, which falls under the state’s jurisdiction.

“We don’t regulate trailer parks,” said Bill King, chief of the department’s inspection bureau in the Valley, “If we took a complaint, we would refer it to the state.”