sw cpab homeless and problem property report 2016.02

8/19/2019 SW CPAB Homeless and Problem Property Report 2016.02

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Vol 4 February 2016 No. 2

Continued on p. 8

City Council and County Supervisors Approve

Ambitious Plans to End Homelessness

Continued on p. 7

City and County ocials on February 9

voted to adopt the most extensive plans to

date to end homelessness in Los Angeles.

This was an encouraging step, though there

is widespread skepticism that the fund-

ing to implement the plans can be found.The two plans are very different in

their scope. On the county side, an ac-

tual $150 million over two years is to be

added to the existing $965 million already

being spent on homeless issues. On the

city side a more long-term focus calls

for construction of some 15,000 beds in

units of Permanent Supportive Housing

over ten years at a cost of $1.85 billion.

The incentive for this new push more

than anything else has been the recent

spread of homeless tents westward out ofthe historic connes of Skid Row and into

neighborhoods shocked by camps springing

up on their blocks and in alleys behind peo-

ple’s homes. This has been in part a result of

downtown gentrication, where developers

have bought up the great majority of single-

room-occupancy hotels previously allocated

to homeless individuals, and in part the result

of a rapid growth in the total numbers living

on the streets. The Los Angeles HomelessServices Authority count in January 2015

found 44,000 homeless people countywide,

with 26,000 of those in the city limits.

Key drivers of the overall increase have

been stagnating wages, the loss of good

paying jobs in the 2008 Great Recession,

where large numbers of people were re-

hired at minimum wage in fast-food and

service jobs. This has been exacerbated by

underbuilding in new housing overall and

particularly in low-income aordable hous-

ing, which is all that the new minimum wageearners can aord. In these conditions loss

of a job, a serious illness, or a familial death

or breakup put people on the streets. These

factors are compounded by the decades-

long abandonment of the mentally ill, left to

wander the streets, eat out of garbage bins,

and sleep in cardboard boxes under bridges.

The most visible are the 8,000 chronic,

long-term street dwellers. About a third of

these are mentally ill. Many others are physi-

cally disabled, or drug or alcohol addicted.

A long nationwide experience has shown

that virtually all measures to rehabilitatethese people fail, with the exception of

Permanent Supportive Housing (PSH).

That is why construction of thousands of

units of this kind of housing is central to

City Administrator Miguel Santana’s 237-

page plan now adopted by the City Council.

For PSH to work, it requires not just a

room with a bed but case workers, mental

A long-demanded reform moved ahead

in the rst week of February when Coun

cil President Herb Wesson secured a votein the City Council to hire a full-time

Petroleum Administrator. Mayor Eric

Garcetti responded immediately that he

was already interviewing prospective

candidates, seeking persons with techni

cal expertise in oil and gas operations

Obviously the most immediate prod to

our city administrators was the three-and-a

half month methane gas leak in Porter Ranch

a neighborhood in the San Fernando Valley

section of Los Angeles, that forced thou

sands of residents from their homes. But Por

ter Ranch was only the latest consequence odecisions made more than 150 years ago to

allow oil and gas wells to spread throughou

the residential neighborhoods of our city. I

was the inevitable consequence of decades

of missing oversight over an industry tha

normally operates far from people’s houses

Los Angeles is home to the largest urban

oil elds in the country with some 3,000

City Council President Herb Wesson

City Responds

to Calls to Hire

a Petroleum

Administrator

City Administrative Ocer Miguel

Santana, drafted plan to house Los

Angeles homeless adopted by the City

Council.


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Homeless and Problem Property Report

Distributed monthly by email by the Southwest LAPD Community Police Advisory Board (CPAB).

Community-Police Advisory Boards were created by the Los Angeles Police Department in 1993 to give community mem-

bers a vehicle to provide advice to and raise issues about crime and police-community relations with their local police stations.

Each of the 21 community police stations has its own CPAB chapter. Southwest CPAB is affiliated to

the Southwest Community Police Station, 1546 W. Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90062.

Our aim is to identify homeless and problem property locations within Southwest LAPD’s area, roughly from

the 10 Freeway on the north to Vernon on the south, and from the Harbor Freeway on the east to La Cienega. Welog homeless camps, and locations such as blocked alleys, illegal businesses, and open junk storage. We accept

requests from residents to look into such problems. If there appears to be a denite violation we photograph it and

report it to the appropriate agency: Homeless outreach teams, Building and Safety, Housing, LAPD, Street Ser -

vices, etc. Determination of the validity of this judgment is always made by the professional stas of these city

agencies. We seek help for the homeless from the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority and other organiza-

tions. If you want to receive these emails (or if you want to unsubscribe) drop us an email at the address below.

Homeless and Problem Property Committee chair: Leslie Evans

[email protected] 323-574-5586 www.southwestcpab.org

Southwest CPAB meets on the rst Monday of each month, usually at 6:30 pm. Our meetings are open to the public and you are welcome to attend. The location changes, so drop us an email to get an announcement. Our next

meeting date and place are also listed on our website, www.southwestcpab.org.

Southwest CPAB is a member of the South Los Angeles Homeless Coalition. This covers the Los Angeles Home-

less Services Authority’s Service Planning Area 6 (SPA6), which runs roughly from the 10 Freeway to Compton and

Paramount, and from Baldwin Village to the borders of Huntington Park, Vernon, and South Gate. The SPA6 Home -

less Coalition is hosted by the Homeless Outreach Program Integrated Care System at 5715 S. Broadway.

Contents

Closed cases: p. 2-4

Current problem locations:

p. 9-10

Homeless locations/issues:

p. 11-18

Cases Closed — February 2016

We have gone back and forth over time on whether

to include RVs in this report. On the plus side many

homeless people live in RVs. But while we have tried

to include all the homeless camps we know of within

the boundaries of the Southwest LAPD station (10 fwy

to Vernon and Harbor fwy to La Cienega), it has never

been possible to include all known RVs, or to determine

with certainty how many are lived in. Also, they move

far more frequently than the camps. As we have very

limited time and resources we have nally concluded

that the RVs take up more of both than we can commit

to this project and as of this issue will not cover RVs.

1458 W 29th Street, LA 90007

This is a two-bedroom 1904 house. Because there is a second

small house on the property jurisdiction goes to the Housing Depart

ment. We led a complaint with Housing over the large pile of junk

in the front yard on January 21, case # 559955. We received a cal

from a Housing inspector Feb 12 saying the yard had been cleared.n


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The camps above grew substantially between November 2015 and January 2016, very likely due to

people seeking shel ter from the ra in under the freeway overpass . As of February 12 the camps in the

top photo have moved north of 20th Street out of our area and the two below that have disappeared.n

Hoover Street under the 10 Freeway

Two of the largest homeless

camp sites were mostly cleared

between mid-January and mid-

February. These were the camps

under the bridge of the 10 Free-

way over Hoover Street and

the majority of the extensive

camps in Leimert Plaza Park.

Leimert Plaza Park, LA 90008

Leimert Plaza Park, a central feature of the Leimert Park

neighborhood, has become overwhelmed by homeless campers.

The small park is bounded by 43rd Place on the north, Vernon

Avenue on the south, Crenshaw Blvd. on the west, and Leimert

Blvd. on the east. In early February the camps above were dis

mantled. One remains (see p. 18). On February 13 the park wa

crowded with homeless people but without their tents or shelters.n


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Adams Blvd. and Hoover Street

This camp was briefly under a construcion overhang

on Adams blvd. just west of Hoover Street as shelter from

the rain in mid-January but was gone a month later.n

42nd Street and Grand

Avenue, LA 90037

Camp and trash on east side of

Harbor Freeway at 42nd Street. 1-10

2016. Gone on visit of 2-13-2016.n

Flower Street north of

Vernon Avenue

There was a large camp here through

most of 2014. It was cleared in Sep-

tember 2014, but reappeared in March

2015 and grew up over the summer. It

was removed again in late December or

early January but had begun to rebuild

in this photo on January 10. The street

was clear in site visit on Feb 12, 2016.n

Jeerson Blvd east of 3rd

Avenue, LA 90018

These are the belongings of a home

less woman who lives mainly in the park to the left. For a long time she had

built ta ll stacks of clothing and other

materials covered with large clear plastic

tarps, one block to the west on Jeerson

In July there were 5 of the large plastic

wrapped stacks. On Sept 13 there were

2. On October 12 only 1, On November

16 there were none and she had moved

the materials to this location. On Feb 16

there was no sign of her or her camp.n


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City Seizes Three Tiny Houses from Homeless Occupants

On February 12, at the request of City

Councilmember Curren Price, city workers

seized three of the four tiny houses on wheels

for the homeless pictured above. They were

located on the 42nd Street bridge over the

Harbor Freeway and around the corner on

Flower Street. One escaped by being rolled

away by its owner. We telephoned Elvis

Summers on February 15. He built the little

structures and donated them to homeless

people. He said the residents were not per -

mitted to remove their belongings, includ-

ing medications, before the structures were

loaded on trucks and taken away. The houses

are stored on a city lot but slated for demoli-

tion. Seven more are scheduled to be seized.The little 4 x 6 foot wheeled structures

have become one focal point in the city’s

uneasy balancing act between trying to

nd other accommodations for people liv-

ing on the streets and simply dismantling

their camps and seizing their property.

West Adams resident Elvis Summers’

rst house, smaller than the ones above

(and denounced as a “dog house” by City

Councilmember Joe Biscaino), was for one

of my homeless neighbors, a 60-year-old

black woman called Smokie, who I have

known for a few years. Summers made a

video of the project. It was viewed on You

Tube by 6 million people. A GoFundMe

eort raised more than $100,000 and Sum

mers has gone full-time building more

and larger, versions. So far, he told me

Elvis Summers with Smokie, who got

his rst house, in April 2015.


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he has built and given away 37 of them.

Here is a v ideo about h is e f -

f o r t s b y T V ’ s I n s i d e E d i t i o n :

https://www.youtube.com/

watch?v=oq6yEjQoHp4.

Summers says his houses were inspired

by a similar project by Oakland artist and

contractor Gregory Kloehn. Here are a couple

of very favorable articles on Kloehn’s work:

http://www.treehugger.com/tiny-

houses/artist-transforms-trash-into-tiny-

homes-homeless-gregory-kloehn.html

and:

http://nationswell.com/gregory-

kloehn-homes-on-wheels-for-homeless/

Supporters of the homeless, and of

course, the recipients of the tiny houses,

think Summer’s project is great. The City

Council and the City Attorney’s oce have

been much more negative. At an August

meeting of the City Council, Senior As-

sistant City Attorney Valerie Flores advised

the body that the houses don’t qualify as

personal belongings but can be seized

and destroyed as mere “bulky items,” like

cast-o furniture. They are not street legal,

and not legal as living quarters on private

property because they lack electricity and

plumbing. Flores said the city could be

sued if someone living in one was injured.

Elvis Summers has retained attorneys

from the ACLU to defend the homeless

owners’ right to keep their little houses. So

far only the three at 42nd and Flower have

been conscated but more are set to go.If the law begins from the zoning code,

then these little structures don’t meet

standards either as vehicles to remain in

the street or as houses to be parked and

lived in on land. But it is a little bizarre

to use these codes for people that have

neither vehicles nor houses: 31,000 of

Gregory Kloehn’s tiny houses in Oakland, California. Highly praised, these are

made from random scrap and are literally about the size of dog houses. Elvis

Summers’ houses are much larger and made from new lumber.

the county’s 44,000 homeless live in the

streets. Many live in tents. RVs, while they

are vehicles, usually when owned by the

homeless do not have running water or

electricity and so do not meet code as habi

tations. And an endless variety of shelters

and shacks are built out of many materi

als. At least the tiny houses are portable

The counter law to the vehicle and

housing codes is the law protecting

pr ivate property, which applies to thehomeless as well as to the better o. The

wheeled tiny wooden houses are contain

ers for homeless property, not empty

“bulky items” such as sofas and chairs

Ninth Circuit Court ordered

protection for homeless

wheeled shelters

The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in

2012 rendered a decision on city seizures

of homeless property. They ruled that unattended homeless personal property, much

less when the owner is standing right there

is protected from seizure under the Fourth

and Fourteenth Amendments to the Con

stitution. The court made a special point of

singling out as examples EDARs, which

they dened as “small, collapsible mobile

shelters provided to homeless persons by

Everyone Deserves a Roof, a nonprofi

organization.” The city had been seizing

and destroying EDARs. The court com

mented: “EDARs are intended to address

the chronic shortage of housing faced by

homeless persons in Los Angeles. Former

Los Angeles City Mayor Richard Riordan

spent the night of Saturday, November 6

2010, in an EDAR on Skid Row to dem

onstrate how the shelters could be used by

the homeless population residing there.”

The reason the EDAR got special atten

tion from the court, and why this deserves

comparison with Elvis Summers’ little hous

es on wheels, was that the EDAR is an entire

ly enclosed shelter on wheels, which makes

it possible to clearly identify what are thehomeless person’s private possessions, no

always evident in a homeless camp situation

and also makes it possible for the owner to

move the structure when needed or required

A Compromise Solution

Of course, no one wants the tiny houses

to fill up our streets, any more than we


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active wells branching out underground

from 70 drill sites, many in residential

neighborhoods, sometimes only a few

feet from residences or schools. Despite

the fact that this industry is based on a product that is itself dangerous and uses

large amounts of dangerous chemicals,

the city has for decades grandfathered

these operations in, paying little attention

to how they operate and lacking any sys-

tem of overall review and accountability.

City code has detailed rules on how to ap-

ply to drill an oil well, and prohibits fumes or

excessive noise from oil operations. It lacks

detailed rules on air quality, environmental

oversight, or access to records. It does not

provide for any periodic review on whether

its rules are being followed, or which agencyto complain to if they are not. Nominally

there is the State Division of Oil, Gas and

Geothermal Resources, but it has recently

admitted that it has not done serious inves-

tigations in years. In practice complaints go

to the South Coast Air Quality Management

District (AQMD), to Zoning Administrators

at the City Planning Department, or to Build-

ing and Safety. The LA Times in their Febru-

ary 4 report on the Petroleum Administrator

issue quoted South Los Angeles resident Ste-

ven Peckman, who said, “As a citizen, you

may call the agency that you think is respon-sible, they point their nger at some other

agency. Someone needs to mind the store.”

When between 2011 and 2013 some

250 complaints were made to AQMD about

nosebleeds and respiratory illnesses from

fumes at the Allen Co. oil drill site at 23rd

Street just west of Figueroa they issued

several citations but never enforced them.

City to Hire Petroleum Administrator

Continued from p. 1

are in favor of the proliferation of home-

less tents. But it is pointless to focus on

their deciencies compared to real houses

instead of their advantages as compared

to a blanket or a tent. No one is offer -

ing the 31,000 living on the street many

houses or apartments, so their real choice

is between the blanket and the tiny house.

The tiny house is waterproof with a

shingle roof. It has a solid wood door witha deadbolt lock to provide security to the

homeless person when inside and to protect

their possessions when they are out. They

have a window and door for ventilation, and

can have a real mattress on the oor to sleep

on. They have wheels, so can be moved when

needed, and keyed wheel locks to prevent theft.

The City Council and the Mayor have

been talking for months about finding

city-owned empty lots in which to set up

showers and portable toilets and allow

homeless citizens living in RVs to camp.

This is the obvious place to put the tiny

houses, and has been loudly advocated

by Elvis Summers. This would solve the

problem of having these struc tures on

sidewalks or in the streets, while providing

better shelter and privacy than the residents

had before, or that the city is prepared to

provide for many years to come, if at all.

Longtime skid row activis t Al -

ice Callaghan praised the houses be-

cause they offer the homeless privacy:

“Who wants to live their life in full

public view? Unless the city has an alter -

native, it seems to me simply immoral for

the city to tell people they have to move

their four walls if they have nowhere to

move them to.” (LA Times Aug 25, 2015)

The Times on Feb 25 said Mayor Garcetti

“is committed to getting homeless people

into permanent and not makeshift housing.”

The city did not oer any housing to the

people whose Tiny Houses they seized, their

housing plan has no funding, and if it did

would take 10 years to deliver. The Times

also spoke to Johnny Horton, a 60-year-old

diabetic whose legs are covered with ban-daged wounds. He was in tears when his

little house was seized and he has to go back

to sleeping on the sidewalk. “Laying on that

tent on the sidewak it’s impossible to keep

clean,” Horton told the reporter. — LEn

Zoning Administrators will hold a hearing

about a single drill site, but have no expertise

in oil issues and do not visit the actual site

Building and Safety says it is in charge o

dealing with violations but its leaders saythey lack the expertise to be able to do so

There was a city Petroleum Adminis

trator in the 1960s, Arthur Spaulding, a

geologist and former petroleum enginee

at Shell Oil Co. He was replaced in the

1970s and 1980s by Jeff Druyan, who

did not have those credentials and who

worked most of the time as a budge

analyst. The job, though still required by

city code, has not existed since the 1990s

In part this gross negligence was a resul

of lack of attention to changes in the oi

industry. By the 1990s most of the LA oiwells were running low and the majority

were plugged and shut down. This seemed

to confirm that an expensive Petroleum

Administrator was no longer needed

Then world conventional oil – the kind

you can just pump out of the ground – a

lined in 2005. Oil companies lled in with

much more expensive and dicult to obtain

unconventional oil: Canadian tar sands

fracked oil from Texas and North Dakota

deep sea oil, and heavy oil from Venezuela

Prices shot up, reaching $100 a barrel in

2011. New owners quickly bought up hundreds of the old LA wells, using new tech

niques to get at the remaining oil. Mainly

this was acidizing, pumping thousands o

gallons of acid into the wells to dissolve

blockages to small ssures, each holding

small amounts of oil. The risk, as the Allen

Co. site showed, was running all this acid

into wells that are almost all more than 50

Allen Company oil drill site at 814 W 23rd St, Los Angeles, CA 90007. Stil

closed in February 2016


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Los Angeles Homeless Plans

Continued from p. 1

health professionals, and drug and alcohol

rehabilitative treatment. These are consider -

able ongoing expenses over and above the

$1.85 billion in projected construction costs.

Last year Miguel Santana reported that

the city in 2014 had spent $100 million onthe homeless, 87% of which went to the po-

lice and re departments. Even though much

of the police work was to take homeless

people to hospitals or shelters, this seriously

exaggerated the proportion of spending on

law enforcement in their involvement with

the homeless. The LA Times in contrast re-

ports that of the county’s $965 million a year

to provide services to homeless residents,

“About 60% of that goes into health and

mental health treatment, including stays in

county emergency rooms and psychiatric fa-

cilities, with 30.5% going to welfare benetsincluding food stamps and cash payments,

and 9.5% to law enforcement, including

jails and probation.” (February 9, 2016)

The test of our ocialdom’s will to do

something real will come in the city’s next

budget, due to be approved in April and May.

Where the county is adding $75 million a

year for two years to its existing budget,

Los Angeles is currently budgeting only

$30 million to homeless programs in this

scal year. The housing in Santana’s plan

alone will, by its fth year of construction,

years old and often not in good condition.

A methane leak near the Beverly Center

in 1985 injured 23 people. A major fume

leak in the giant Inglewood Oil Field in

2006 forced the evacuation of 500 people.

There was a toxic fume blowout in Torrance

in March 2007; a 10,000-gallon spill in an

industrial section of Los Angeles in May

2014 from a pipeline running to Long Beach.

South L.A. Oil Sites

Closer to Homes

And then came the long community

battles over three South Los Angeles oil

sites: the worst being the Allen Co. drill site.

But there have been complaints of fumes

and construction noise at two sites owned

by the giant Freeport McMoRan Oil and Gas

Company: the Jeerson Drill Site at Bud-

long Avenue and Jeerson Blvd. and their

Murphy site at Adams Blvd. and Gramercy

Place. These three sites, along with some inWilmington, are closer to residential hous-

ing than sites in any other part of the city.

The Community Health Councils in

a January 2015 Issue Brief pointed out:

“Although oil and gas production occurs

citywide, the relative risk is signicantly

higher in lower-income communities of col-

or. Oil drilling occurs closer to homes, has

fewer protective features such as air monitor -

ing and enclosed operations, and is subject to

more regulatory violations and complaints.”

The LA Times ran a February 4 edito-

rial under the heading: “It’s past time forL.A. to seriously regulate its oil and gas

wells.” They wrote: “The massive gas leak

in Porter Ranch has forced city leaders to

confront the tremendous risks of having

oil and gas operations in urban areas.”

It is essential that there be at least one

central full-time person in the city admin-

istration with serious technical knowledge

of oil and gas operations, who can go to

problem sites and assess citizen com-

plaints. Even the California Independent

Petroleum Association, an industry group,

say they favor having someone with real

technical knowledge on the city payroll

who will know if citizen complaints are

valid. The second qualication for this job

beyond oil industry experience is that they

be committed to protect the safety of the

community. Given that, we all look for -

ward to the Mayor’s appointment. — LEn

be running about $267 million a year. Al

other costs, including case management

mental health treatment, and dealing with

those still on the streets, are on top of that

The city is considering new levies

on developers and possible ballot measures to raise taxes or issue new bonds

Some Help That May

Come Soon

There are smaller measures in the ocia

plans that can be taken sooner, at much lowe

costs, that can make an important dierence

These include setting up mobile showers and

public toilets throughout the city, and autho

rizing city-owned and private lots, including

church parking lots, where homeless people

living in cars or RVs can camp at nightWe will soon have new numbers to tel

us whether or not the rapid growth of the

homeless between 2013 and 2015 is continu

ing. The Los Angeles Homeless Services

Authority stepped up their point-in-time

homeless count from once every two years

to annually. Some 7,000 volunteers, includ

ing this writer, made a new survey of the

county’s homeless January 26-28. The tabu

lations should be complete and the numbers

released in late April or early May.—LEn

Volunteers ready to go out for the January 28 South Los Angeles (SPA6)

segment of the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority county-wide

Homeless Count. Photo at the Homeless Outreach Program/Integrated Care

System at 57th Street and Broadway.


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This small house has for some years

collected junk, derelict motorcycles, and

inoperable vehicles around it. In 2009

Building and Safety had the owner remove

several inoperable vehicles. We filed a

complaint to Building and Safety, July 13,

2015, for storage of boxes of liquid on the

porch and on the north side of the house.

From recent photos we can now see that

they are 35 pound containers of canola oil

for commercial deep fryers. It was assigned

2509 S Raymond Ave, LA 90007

Current Problem Locations

2921 S La Salle

Avenue, LA 90018

This abandoned house has been on our

reports since January 2010, when we led

a Building and Safety complaint. It has

been vacant and a local nuisance far longe

than that. The owner, Doris Crader, moved

to Salinas, California, in 1975. She died in

2009 without a will, leaving the house on La

Salle Avenue ownerless. It has accumulated

trash and transients ever since. In February

2015 we succeeded in getting Building

and Safety to clean the yard and place a

to Inspector Antonio Monsisvais (323)

789-2786 (since transferred to the Electri-

cal Section). It remained listed as Under

Investigation as of Feb 17, 2016. Inspector

Monsisvais cited the property for “Excessive

or overgrown vegetation on the premises”

and “Open storage within the required

yards.” The order had a required compli-

ance date of 9/19/2015. Photo to the right

is of the stack of boxes on the front porch.n


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Long Vacant Burger Stand at 4319 S Hoover Street, LA 90037

This 720-square-foot food service stand,

built in 1950, at the corner of Hoover Street

and 43rd Place in South Los Angeles, has

stood vacant for many years, a blight mag-

net attracting illegal dumpers and homeless

campers. It has been on our reports since

October 2013 and it has been under an

abate order from Building and Safety since

August 2014. In this photo taken 2-12-2016

the usual dumping is there and illegal swap

meets are often held on the Hoover sideusing the fence to hang clothing for sale.

The place is owned by 82-year-old

retired attorney Harold W. Dickens. In ad-

dition to the abandoned food stand, online

agencies report that Mr. Dickens has 3 other

properties: an apartment at 1245 Martin Lu-

ther King Jr Blvd., #101, LA 90037, a two-

bedroom house at 3842 S Hobart Blvd., LA

90062, and a three-bedroom house at 14905

S. White Avenue in Compton. His son has

told us that he only keeps the burger stand as

a tax write-o, ignoring the perpetual grief

it inicts on the surrounding neighborhood.

The layout of the property would seem

to make it too dicult to open the food

stand. It is surrounded by a tall wrought

iron fence keeping customers away from

the service window, and if the fence

was removed the large empty lot would

make it even more attractive to transientsfor night camping. It would be most ef -

fectively used to build something new

that used the whole of the large space.

Mr. Dickens says he is unwilling to sell.

The Building and Safety website gives

the following code violation information:

“The building or premises is Substandard

due to inadequate sanitation caused by gen-

eral dilapidation or improper maintenance of

the building as required by Section 91.8104

“The premises are Substandard due

to an accumulation of weeds, vegeta

tion, junk, dead organic matter, debris

garbage, offal, rat harborages, stagnan

water, combustible materials and simila

materials or conditions.” The inspec

tor is Jeffrey Corpuz, 213-252-3946.n

construction fence around the property.

In April 2015 after a long search we lo-

cated Doris Crader’s son. Originally named

Brian Crader, he had adoped his mother’s

married name of Clayton and changed

the spelling of his first name to Brion.

Mr. Clayton informed Deputy City

Attorney Alvan Arzu that he intended

to open a probate case to gain title to

the vacant house. During the summer of

2015 Building and Safety agreed to give

Mr. Clayton keys to the city’s chain link

fence, and he has visited the property a

number of times since then, but online

records still list Doris Crader as the owner.

We were able to view the interior of the

house during a visit in January 2015 and

found all the downstairs rooms buried under

3-5 feet of trash, which neighbors said had

been left by the owners years ago. Brion

Clayton in November 2015 brought a dump

ster onto the property and began removing

the junk, but as of February 17, 2016, he has

not established ownership. Sixty-nine neigh

bors have signed a petition to City Counci

District 8 councilmember Marqueece

Harris-Dawson asking that the city take

some more decided action to see the house

not remain empty in its present condition.n


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Homeless Locations and Issues

This alley is just north of the 10 Freeway and runs east from Nor -

mandie to Mariposa. The camp in the photo on the left is at the west

end of the alley. We rst observed it in December 2013, and reported

it to LA Homeless Services Authority. The second camp (photo on

Alley between 10 Fwy and 20th St, east of Normandie

right) appeared in September 2014 at the east end of the alley. The

man at the east end says he has applications in for housing but they

have not come through. Both camps still there on 2-13-2016.n

Cal Trans Bunker, eastbound o-ramp of the 10 Freeway at Vermont Ave.

First noticed in March 2014. Until September 2015 one thin, gray-haired Caucasian man was living

here. Now it appears that a young Latino couple are using the bunker. We have seen them twice. These

photos were taken 2-13-2 016. The en larged photo on the righ t shows ta rps in the bunker ’s fa r corn er.n


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1655 W. Adams Blvd, LA 90007

In March 2014 one RV and two travel trailers were moved

onto this mostly empty lot (a small carriage house exists in

the back). The owner says they have been occupied by three

mentally ill veterans. In November 2015 it was raised to two

travel trailers and two RVs, plus a travel trailer in the far back

not visible in this photo that predates the current four vehicles.

Building and Safety has a case against the property for using it

as a place to live, but very reasonably is not pursuing it and wethink everyone concerned understands that it is better that these

men have their mobile homes than to be out on the streets.n

Harvard Blvd. just south of

Adams Blvd.

This man, named Chris, was living on the sidewalk next to

a strip mall just north of Adams Blvd. on Hobart Blvd. from

sometime in 2013 to July 2015, up against a barricade while a

new building was under construction. When the building wasnished he moved across Adams and one block to the east. We

have had one complaint about him from the Empowerment

Congress North Area Neighborhood Development Council. His

camp was much larger in November and was evidently cleared

and he is just beginning to rebuild it. This photo, Feb 12, 2016.n

We rst included this camp in our May 2015 report. The entrance from the dirt path running left from the freeway

is wedged between the wall of shrubbery, which stretches west along the freeway margin, and a wrought iron fence

covered with ivy that separates the Cal Trans property from Frank’s Auto Center at 2137 S. Western. We think there

are about three men living there, who panhandle cars as they exit the freeway. This photo from a visit of 2-14-2016.n

E a s t b o u n d o f f - r a m p o f t h e 1 0 F r e e w a y a t W e s t e r n A v e n u e


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This homeless camp was rst in our April 2015 report when

it was very small and on the sidewalk at the corner of Nor -

mandie Avenue and 35th Street. When we visited on May 13,

2015 we found the camp had moved o the sidewalk and into

the east-west alley between Normandie and Halldale Avenues

Alley west of Normandie Ave. between 37th Place and 37th Drive

and between 37th Place and 37th Drive. We have visited every

month and spoken to Earl, who is living there alone with his

three dogs. Earl is friendly, interested in nonction books, of

which he keeps a big box. His dogs are all in good condition. He

says he would like to get real housing. This photo 2-14-2016.n

Alley West of Menlo Ave.

between 43rd Street and 43rd Place

This half-block-long alley running west from Menlo

Ave. hides a homeless camp. The alley ends at the west

in a north south alley that blocks it from continuing to the

next street, Vermont Avenue. We rst noticed it on May

17, 2015. This photo is from a visit on Feb 12, 2016.n


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Homeless at the south end of the Crenshaw bridge over the 10 Freeway

While some of the homeless a t the nor th end o f the Crenshaw br idge over the 10 Free -

way left between mid-January and mid-February, there was an increase in camps at the south end of the

bridge around the east bound offramp. All four of the photos above are from the south end. Going clockwise(1) The old timer in the wheelchair is parked in front of the UHaul station. A few minutes later he rolled into

the car exit lane of the oramp where he set up panhandling while cars had to swerve around him. (2) This camp

is behind the chain link fence at the edge of the oramp, on the top of the slope that runs down to the freeway. It

was new in February. (3) This camp in on the north side of the exit. It began a few months ago as a single shop -

ping cart. (4) The long-standing camp at the south end under the Crenshaw bridge. Photos taken 2-14-2016.n

Vermont Ave at 40th Place

Camp just o sidewalk in block south of Martin Luther King

Jr Blvd., 2-12-2016. In our report rst in January 2016.n


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39th Street, just east of Flower Street, under Harbor Freeway Bridge

W e f i r s t s a w t h e s e c a m p s o n J u n e 1 6 , 2 0 1 5 . T h e s e p h o t o s a r e f r o m 2 - 1 2 - 2 0 1 6 .

The top photo is the south side of 39th Street, just east of Flower. The next below that is the same side

one block east, just after a freeway offramp. The bottom photo is the north side just at Flower Street.n


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40th Place at Flower Street, LA 90037

The tent in the photo was part of a long string of camps in a narrow

walkway running north from 40 Place and Flower street, between a

MacDonalds and the Harbor Freeway, All but this one were cleared

in December 2015. The other campers relocated to the west side ofFlower Street just south of 40th Place (see photos below on this page).n

Flower Street south of 40th Place

C a m p s o n s i d e w a l k j u s t s o u t h o f 4 0 t h P l a c e o n w e s t s i d e o f F l o w e r

Street, across from the 110 Freeway. In mid-January there was only the rough looking

one in the center. On February 12 it had been joined by the two tents on each side of it.

This is a short alley running westward from Flower Street just south of 40th Place. In

mid-January it was blocked at the sidewalk line by one large tent, at that time the only camp

there. On February 12 we found the alley filled with camps, and the barricade at the side-

walk line was more formal, with a large table braced on its side to limit entrance to the alley.n


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42nd Street Bridge over Harbor Freeway, south Side

February 12, 2016. In January there had been two tents and one of Elvis Summers’ Tiny Houses on the north side of the 42nd Street

overpass, while there had been two of Summer’s houses on the south side along with a number of tents. In February the three Tiny

Houses were gone and all the tents had consolidated on the south side, making this photo the largest collection of camps on that side-

walk in several years.n

Flower Street north of 43rd Street

There had been two tents here in June and July, but since Sep-

tember there has been just this one. This photo 2-12-2016.n

43rd Street Bridge over Harbor Freeway

North side. In November it was a blue tent. On 1-10-2016 it

was red on top over a white base with a black cloth front. This

seems to be yet a dierent tent. Photo: 2-12-2016.n

Alley running south from

Jeerson just east of

CrenshawThere had been four or ve homeless

men living in this alley in 2014, then one

died and the camp dispersed. One man

set up a camp in May 2015. In a July 14

site visit a man and a woman were camp-

ing in the alley but the camp remained

very small through January 2016. It has

doubled in size in this photo of 2-16-2016.n


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Bus stop on south side of Jeerson Blvd.,

just east of Crenshaw

After the homeless camp in the alley just east of this bus stop

broke up in 2014 (see last entry on previous page), homeless peo-

ple have tended to spend long periods or camp on this bus bench

in front of the ARCO gas station on the southeast corner of Jef -

ferson and Crenshaw Boulevards. This photo is from 2-13-2016.n

Leimert Plaza Park, LA 90008

Leimert Plaza Park, a central feature of the Leimert Park neighborhood, has become overwhelmed by homeless campers. The

small park is bounded by 43rd Place on the north, Vernon Avenue on the south, Crenshaw Blvd. on the west, and Leimert Blvd. on

the east. The homeless originally congregated at the northern end of the park, but by November 2015 had taken over virtually the

whole of the place with tents, sleeping bags, blankets, and cooking pots. In late January or early February there was a city clean-

up that seized all the many tents and home-made shelters. As of Feb 13, 2016 this photo at the west end of the park was the only

camp. However, the park was lled with homeless men and women, one of whom said they would begin to rebuild their camps.n

4501 W Martin Luther King Jr.

Blvd.This gear belongs to homeless man

David Odom. We visited the location rst

on March 19, 2015, but had been told abou

it by LAPD ocers some months earlier

Odom keeps his belongings on an island for

the MTA buses. We have visited this location

about 9 times and this is the rst time we have

seen Mr. Odom. Photo as of 2-14-2015. n

sw cpab homeless and problem property report 2016.02

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