Raid Reveals Shantytown of Laborers

Uncovering an overcrowded shantytown in Ventura County’s most prosperous city, sheriff’s deputies and city inspectors converged on a downtown lot early Thursday to roust about 50 immigrant workers living in rundown houses, cramped metal tool sheds and backyard huts.

The daybreak sweep of the hidden ghetto--within walking distance of Thousand Oaks’ $64-million City Hall and performing arts center--shook workers and their families from makeshift beds and ended in what was essentially a mass eviction for many living there.

Alerted by neighbors to the growing number of residents near Royal Oaks and Sunset drives, code enforcement officers discovered a maze of about 15 makeshift dwellings on about three-quarters of an acre.

The 10 or so garages, sheds and huts were crowded with Latino men, who emerged from their dwellings as authorities moved in and out of the houses, declaring the property a cluttered safety hazard.

“Home? I don’t have a home,” said Jose Gutierrez Sandoval, who described himself as a 34-year-old itinerant construction worker. After pulling himself off a damp, beer-can littered carpet in the backyard, he--like many others awoken during the 6 a.m. sweep--hurried off to work.

One man roused from sleep in a 4-foot-tall tool shed was told by a Spanish-speaking deputy he had to be gone by 5 p.m.

Reaching for an English language study guide, he replied in Spanish, “If I have to leave, I better take my things.”

Others sleeping outdoors simply pulled bedsheets over their heads, waiting for the team of a dozen deputies and city inspectors to leave.

The focus of the sweep, city officials said, was to clear out the illegal dwellings and correct hazardous conditions in the houses--not to report illegal immigrants or pursue charges against the Westlake Village landlords.

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The discovery outraged some city officials, and was painful even for veteran deputies who helped post code violation notices.

“People say this can’t happen in Thousand Oaks,” said Sheriff’s Deputy Jerardo Gomez, who acted as a translator during the sweep. “But you know what, it can. It’s probably easier to hide it, than to get rid of it.”

Housing advocates said the squalor revealed there underscores the problems that low-income workers face in this wealthy enclave of 113,000, where the average annual household income is about $60,000 and the typical home sells for $236,500.

“The underclass is there, and it’s happening, because there ain’t nowhere else for them to go,” said Dan Hardy, the director of Thousand Oaks-based affordable housing group Many Mansions. Hardy’s group was one of several social organizations trying Thursday to help find homes for the displaced workers and families. But he was not optimistic, saying that Many Mansions has a waiting list several hundred names long.

“I think what’s going to happen, is they’re going to find another place to overcrowd,” he said.

Most of the dwellers are Latino men who acknowledged being undocumented immigrants with jobs at local restaurants, factories and construction companies. Some paid as much as $950 a month to live in the four single-story houses and two wooden shacks on the oak-studded property. Many of them, in turn, charged other renters about $100 a month to live in huts and tool sheds.

Sheriff’s deputies told about 20 men who climbed out of converted garages, sheds and even off outdoor mats to vacate their unsafe homes by evening.

Those living in the small houses can remain for now, provided that landlords repair a host of building violations: inadequate plumbing, hazardous electrical wiring and deteriorating foundations.

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The sheds, too, had hazardous conditions, particularly electrical extension cords strung from power sources in the homes, said Geoff Ware, the code compliance supervisor who headed the sweep.

The city earlier alerted landlords Al and Joy Silver to the conditions and Thursday ordered them to fix the problems.

“It seemed all right, but it got out of hand. You can’t come and check every day,” Joy Silver said.

Thousand Oaks City Councilman Andy Fox, a Los Angeles city fire captain, said the city needs to come down hard on property owners who allow such conditions.

“Landlords need to be held accountable to criminal prosecution . . . ,” Fox said. “We refer to those people as slumlords and rightly so. There is no excuse for charging rent to people living in substandard conditions. That should not be tolerated.”

Ware said city officials would not take court action against the Silvers. Instead, he said, they had asked the couple to fix rundown houses, remove structures the city never approved and ensure that people were not living in garages, sheds and huts.

The sunrise operation, he said, was never intended to root out illegal immigrants.

“The city is not responsible for the enforcement of immigration laws,” Ware said. “But the city is responsible for maintaining minimum standards for housing.”

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Several months ago, neighbors began complaining to code officers of overcrowding, trash and messy landscaping at the corner of Royal Oaks and Sunset, he said.

“I always thought there was far too many people there. I watched too many people come and go,” said Veronica Tally, who lives in one of the nearby condominiums. She said she has worried about children who lived on the property and played in the streets. “You’d have to dodge them when you drove by,” she said.

Indeed, the rental houses were crowded, but neighbors apparently had no idea of the makeshift complex hidden behind thick oak trees and extensive picket fencing.

“From the outside,” Ware said, “I don’t think you get the full impression of what’s happening inside.”

After inspections earlier this month, inspectors began drawing up a 15-page list of building violations. They contacted the Silvers.

Shortly after the sweep, Joy Silver arrived at the property handing out $50- and $100-bills to displaced renters.

One couple living in a small backyard building received $400. Silver said she was returning rent money to legitimate tenants who had been told by the city to vacate.

Silver said she and her husband bought the property nine years ago. She said city officials told her about the rental scheme and overcrowding last month, and she promptly sent out a notice to her tenants.

“It seems they were renting any space they could,” she said. “I got a notice from the city they would not tolerate this anymore, and I told them this had to stop.”

But without the underground rent scheme, many of Silvers’ tenants say they cannot afford to remain.

Hermina Coronado Cedeno said she and several others paid $830 a month to the Silvers for a tiny house on Sunset. In exchange for cooking and cleaning, several “housemates” paid her $80 a week.

Single and unemployed, 28-year-old Coronado said she and her two young daughters, who live in a makeshift room constructed from plywood and a bedsheet, have nowhere to go.

“They woke us up, they woke up my girls, and they told people they have to leave,” said Coronado, who said she is an illegal immigrant who has lived in Thousand Oaks for four years. “I’m alone. I don’t have a place to go. I can stay, but I can’t afford [the] rent myself. I’m very scared.”

Antonio Cruz, a 35-year-old landscaper who described himself as a legal immigrant from El Salvador, said three men were living in the garage adjacent to the house he rents for $950 a month. They paid him $125 a month.

“I don’t think it’s fair,” Cruz said. “They’ll have an hour to move out.”

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Thursday’s sweep may have uncovered the worst case of overcrowding ever in Thousand Oaks, but it certainly was not the first crackdown.

In 1986, a landowner served five days in County Jail for converting three-bedroom rental homes into nine-bedroom tenements. And in 1992, the City Council passed a controversial ordinance requiring homeowners to apply for permits before renting to four or more adults.

Sheriff’s deputies on hand for Thursday’s sweep described the neighborhood as one of the few trouble spots in this wealthy city. Earlier this year, an illegal immigrant living nearby was arrested on suspicion of raping two women and attempting to assault a third.

Deputy Gustavo Macias said two stabbings and a shooting occurred in the neighborhood in recent years.

Deputy Gomez said the hidden ghetto’s inhabitants are used to hardship. “They’re people who know how to cut their losses and move on,” he said.

Times staff writer Miguel Bustillo and correspondent Penny Arevalo contributed to this report.

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Thousand Oaks’ Hidden Ghetto

Ventura County sheriff’s deputies and Thousand Oaks code enforcers converged on a small neighbordhood just off the city’s main commercial district Thursday, uncovering a shantytown of about 50 immigrant workers and their families living indilapidated houses, tool sheds and huts. Most of the inhabitants were told they had to vacate their unsafe dwellings.

Source: City of Thousand Oaks