Mobile Home Park Ordered to Let Buses Pick Up Disabled Students

Before the trouble began, each day started with a small victory: Chris Stark walked out his front door and boarded the school bus without help from his mother.

Chris, 15, who is legally blind and has cerebral palsy and emotional disabilities, has not had those morning successes for nearly a year now -- since the management of the Chatsworth Mobile Home Park where he lives refused to allow school buses to pick up disabled children at their homes within the park.

In legal documents, park management contended that the buses -- provided by the Los Angeles Unified School District -- sped through the park, made noise, disrupted residents and threatened the safety of others.

Gary Rhoades, an attorney representing Chris and Alix Diaz, a 13-year-old with autism who also lives in the park, denied the allegations. He countered that the park’s decision violates federal fair housing laws by imposing different treatment on disabled children and refusing to accommodate their needs.

Last month, U.S. District Court Judge Consuelo B. Marshall issued a preliminary injunction that, in effect, orders the park to allow the buses inside.

“Defendants’ refusal to allow home site transportation has caused Chris and Alix emotional harm,” Marshall wrote. “ ... the plaintiffs and their children must deal with the stress of traffic near the entrance to the park and the varying times when the buses arrive.”

Late last week, the district received signed permits from the park allowing the buses in, but news had not reached drivers by early Monday morning. The bus that picks up Alix parked on Lassen Street, in front of the park, and the bus that picks up Chris stopped in a parking lot at the park’s entrance.

“The way they’re acting, is like children,” Chris said of the park owners as he sat in the back of his mother’s SUV at 6:30 a.m.

Rhoades said the court’s ruling confirms arguments he and the Fair Housing Council of San Fernando Valley have made for months.

“I’m at a loss to be able to explain what seems to be very mean-spirited conduct on the part of the park toward these children,” he said.

Attorneys for the park could not be reached for comment.

Marshall determined that the park did not intentionally treat the teenagers differently from other residents. But she did decide that resuming the bus service would “afford children an equal opportunity to use and enjoy their dwelling.”

The controversy over the buses has baffled the teens and their parents. L.A. Unified requires property owners to sign a permit allowing buses on their property. For two school years, the buses were allowed into the park.

In September, then-park manager Lori Summer declined to sign the permit.

In court documents, park attorneys Robert S. Coldren and Robert G. Williamson argued that “in 2003 on several occasions, park management tried to talk to at least one bus driver to ask him to keep the bus speed down.” Several residents had complained, they said.

The posted speed limit inside the park is 10 mph. The park also has speed bumps.

Park attorneys dismissed claims of harm to Alix, Chris and their parents as thin, bordering “on the trivial and [involving] plaintiffs’ convenience rather than harm to their children.”

Rhoades said that attempts to resolve the matter have failed.

He said 127 residents of the park signed declarations that they never had a problem with the buses or ever complained. School district officials have denied allegations of speeding.

“I truly believe if that were the case, I would have gotten a call,” said Myron Gray, the district’s regional transportation manager for the West Valley. “We didn’t hear about that allegation until it came up during the hearing.”

The mothers of Chris and Alix said that the last 10 months have taken a toll on their families.

Alix attends Robert Frost Middle School in Granada Hills, listens to Barney and Selena and says, “Lights, camera, action,” when she spots a photographer’s camera. But her communication is severely limited and change makes her cry and flap her fingers in agitation.

She has no “concept that a car won’t stop for her,” said her mother, Anita Diaz.

“She’s amazingly smart, but with stuff like that she doesn’t get it,” said Diaz, a single mother with two other daughters, ages 7 and 9.

After the bus stopped coming to her home, Alix’s driver began picking her up at a bus stop near the park. An aide would meet the girl at the park, then walk with her along busy Lassen Street.

“One of my concerns is, if something happens to her aide she’s just going to go” running in any direction, Diaz said. “I think about this all the time.”

Alix seems to understand her mother’s fear. “Relax, Mom,” Alix said as they waited for the bus.

On Monday morning, Alix’s bus stopped in a “No Stopping at Any Time, Tow Away Zone” outside the park. The aide escorted Alix to the bus, and Diaz headed back home to get her other daughters ready before heading off to work.

Dorothy Stark said her son, Chris, a student at Joaquin Miller High School in Reseda, thought he was being punished when the school buses were not allowed into the park but a van for senior citizens and other large vehicles were.

“He didn’t know what he had done wrong to have the buses taken,” she said.

The bus began picking him up at a lot near the entrance of the park about half a mile from their home. Away from the path he had memorized, he was “scared to death,” she said.

Passing cars in the lot did not stop for him. So his mother walked him from her SUV to the bus, something no 15-year-old wants his classmates to see. His independence was gone.

Following the court ruling, there were delays and confusion. A bus did pick up Chris at home one day last week, and the teen, who loves science, the Beatles and Harry Potter, got on -- happy.

“He was singing,” his mother said. But then the buses stopped coming. They are expected to resume home pickup this week.