Aliso Village Housing Declared Unsafe

Public housing officials on Friday declared that the 56-year-old buildings of the Aliso Village project are structurally unsafe and said that at least 40 families will be relocated in the next several months.

The announcement accelerated a long-simmering plan to demolish the entire project--which sits below the Santa Ana Freeway in the flats of Boyle Heights--and find new housing for its 685 families, officials said.

The Los Angeles city Housing Authority declared a state of emergency for the development’s 33 buildings--a legal action that could pave the way to receive federal money for the relocation and demolition, officials said. However, they added that none of the buildings pose any immediate danger to residents.

The agency hopes to raze and reconstruct the project--as it is doing in the nearby Pico Aliso development--within six years, said Executive Director Don Smith.

“This project is old and can’t be modernized,” he said. “It is obsolete and needs to be torn down.”

The structural condition of the ailing peach-colored buildings became apparent recently when workers ripped open a stucco wall in a breezeway to check the strength of joists supporting four apartments.

Within the wall, a wooden beam had rotted to a splintered, moldering core. Above it, the deck was so weakened that a resident had recently crashed through the boards. There are 10 such breezeways in the development, under which children ride their bikes and residents gather in the shade.

Though work crews have since installed supports to shore up the apartments, some tenants still fear a collapse. The first 40 families to be moved live above the breezeways.

“I’m afraid to go down with the building in a [minor] earthquake,” said David Ochoa, president of the residents’ council, who has held meetings with his neighbors on the upcoming move. Some have felt reluctant to relocate, and many others have not attended the meetings, he said.

“We cannot keep them here,” he said. “They have to understand. We are trying to do the best thing for their own safety.”

Smith said the residents would have several options, but would most likely find their own apartments and receive government reimbursement vouchers for the rent. It would be an incremental process that would take up to two years, he said.

Smith said the vacancy rate is high, and the agency would help the displaced tenants find landlords willing to take the vouchers. He added that current Aliso tenants will get priority for new apartments if the project is rebuilt.

Residents said they have grown accustomed to the dilapidated two-story buildings and call them home. They have ties in the area--to jobs, friends, schools and churches--and worry about starting fresh in a new neighborhood.

“I’m used to this place,” said Louis Reza, 54, who has planted a tropical garden with bougainvillea and birds of paradise below his apartment.

Salesman Edgar Moran, 25, said he feels secure in the project, despite the plaster crumbling on his walls and the ominous sense felt by some that an earthquake could level the neighborhood.

“Many people are just afraid because they don’t know where they are going to go,” he said. Some residents’ roots run deep. Manuela Gonzales, 67, said her children grew up at Aliso Village and went to school in the area more than three decades ago. She helped found the nearby Mission Dolores church and worked with the city to bring street lights to her block.

“I’m sad,” she said. “I’ve been here so long. I have so many memories here.”

Smith said it will cost $8.5 million to relocate residents and demolish the buildings. The Housing Authority has applied for federal funds. Additionally, the agency has applied for a $35-million loan toward the estimated $85-million cost of rebuilding.