50 Rousted in Shantytown Crackdown

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

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

Code enforcement officers had been alerted by neighbors to the growing number of people living near Royal Oaks and Sunset drives and discovered a maze of about 15 makeshift dwellings on about three-quarters of an acre.

The people living there emerged at 6 a.m. Thursday as Ventura County sheriff’s deputies and city inspectors moved through the area, declaring it 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 who occasionally sleeps at the lot. After pulling himself off a damp, beer-can littered carpet, he, like many others roused during the sweep, hurried off to work.

One man sleeping in a 4-foot-tall toolshed was awakened by a Spanish-speaking deputy who told him to leave by 5 p.m.

The man replied in Spanish, “If I have to leave, I better take my things,” and reached for an English language study guide.

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

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

Thursday’s 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 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 underscores 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, director of the Thousand Oaks-based affordable housing group called Many Mansions. Hardy’s group was one of several social organizations trying to help find homes for displaced workers and families. But he was not optimistic, saying that the group already 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.

Sheriff’s deputies told about 20 men who climbed out of converted garages and sheds to vacate the unsafe dwellings by evening.

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

The sheds also 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.

Ware said city officials 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.

He said the sunrise operation was not 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.”

Many of the people staying in the area were like Hermina Coronado Cedeno, 28, who said she and her two young daughters have no place else to go.

The family had been living in a makeshift room constructed from plywood and a bedsheet.

“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 to rent myself. I’m very scared.”

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