Landlords Did Their Bit Against Blight

The murky swimming pool alone was enough to make most potential buyers of the apartment building at 21225 Roscoe Blvd. run and hide their checkbooks.

“It looked like the tar pit in ‘Jurassic Park,’ ” said Michael Entin.

But Entin and his father, David, finally decided they had little choice. The prostitution, drug-dealing, gunshots and other problems spewing out of the derelict building had begun driving away the tenants of the apartment house they owned two doors away.

“It was just a cancer,” David Entin said. And it was spreading. So the Entins bought the building in June from Coast Federal Savings, which had foreclosed on the previous owner.

For going where other real estate investors and their bankers had feared to tread, as well as for providing the momentum behind an effort to deal with other neighborhood problems, the Entins received the praise and gratitude of the Los Angeles City Council on Friday.

A motion introduced by Councilman Hal Bernson, who represents the Roscoe Boulevard area in Canoga Park, thanked the Entins for working “indefatigably” with city agencies to “keep a tight rein on would-be slumlords” in the area.

The resolution also praised the Entins for purchasing, rehabilitating and fully renting the notorious neighborhood eyesore in less than two months. David Entin “serves as an exemplary role model for property owners choosing to be a part of the solution” and “proves that one determined, enthusiastic and energetic person” can make a difference, it said.

Although they provide an essential service in a city where only a minority of families can afford to purchase homes, apartment building owners have often been the target of scorn from tenants and city officials.

But now many city officials say that owners who screen out drug dealers and deadbeat tenants, who maintain their properties well and work with police and other agencies on neighborhood problems are a bulwark against blight.

In accepting his commendation from the council, David Entin said that improving Los Angeles neighborhoods has to be done “block by block by block” by individual building owners working with the city and one another.

“This is my city and it is very important to me,” said the elder Entin, 59, who graduated from UCLA with a degree in real estate nearly four decades ago. “Don’t talk to me about graffiti and stuff like that. I have flowers hanging on my light standards in front of my building . . . and I want to have that all up and down Roscoe.”

Entin has been a partner in the building at 21205 Roscoe for nearly 20 years. But about three years ago, he realized that his partners were not managing it up to his standards. He bought them out, brought in new, aggressive managers, had the building painted and spruced up the 1 1/2-acre private park he created for his tenants across the alley.

At the urging of Nanci Oliva, an aide to Bernson, David Entin began working on problems with other buildings. He agreed to head a newly created Roscoe-Variel Property Owners Assn. And he and his managers, Vernon and Ethel Marcum, began painting out graffiti, picking up trash, pressuring city officials for help and calling police when problems arose.

“He’s helped me a lot,” said LAPD Officer Dan Elefante, referring to David Entin. “He calls the other owners up and down the street and gets them involved and explains to them that you have to put in a little bit of money to make money.”

The Entins put more than a little bit of money into the eyesore they bought in June. They invested $500,000 in repairs and turned a slum property into a showcase, with a sparkling swimming pool, new bathroom tiles, new cabinets, flowers, shrubs and lighting. Even so, they didn’t raise rents. The units, which rent for $625 or less, quickly filled with families.

Maria Huerta, who lived in the gray building at 21225 Roscoe with her husband and three young children before and after the transformation, is grateful for the improvements.

“Now it’s nice and calm,” she said, recalling a shooting that occurred in front of the building a year ago and the drug addicts who lived there.

Her husband, Kico Huerta, added: “Before, it was like garbage, with a lot of drug dealers and gang members around. Now, there’s no more drugs around. It’s a nice place to live.”