by Phoenix Tso and Emily Elena Dugdale
This article was first published by the nonprofit newsroom L.A. Public Press on May 13, and is republished here with permission.
Benito Flores has been waiting almost a week for Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department deputies to arrive at his door. The 70-year-old recently received a notice to vacate his home in El Sereno or be forced out. Surviving on around $1,200 a month through Social Security and government payments, with no other housing lined up, he says he faces a stark choice: either this place, or the street.
“ We are going to resist in [a] very, very intense, very strong way, and very creative way,” Flores told LA Public Press while standing in front of his home on May 7, the deadline for him to leave. In a press release, he wrote that “it is likely that I will be killed by the violence of the sheriff or Highway Patrol.”
Five years ago, Flores, along with more than a dozen other people, took over Caltrans-owned homes in El Sereno that had sat vacant for decades due to a proposed freeway expansion that never happened. They shared a united purpose: to highlight the government’s failure to provide people with housing, even while liveable housing sat empty.
Caltrans had bought hundreds of homes in El Sereno, as well as neighboring Alhambra and South Pasadena, for a proposed 710 freeway extension that was ultimately cancelled in 2018, leaving the homes vacant for years.
And at first, it worked. Caltrans let the group — known as the Reclaimers — stay. The agency began leasing the homes to the Housing Authority of the City of Los Angeles (HACLA) — who then offered temporary lease agreements to the Reclaimers.
But now, it’s the end of the line even for the most hardened Reclaimers. The unity that once rippled across the region as a wake-up call to housing inequity has fallen apart as occupants wage their own individual, gritty battles in court to stay housed.
“I have to think of my family. And I can’t think that being in the street is gonna help us out.”
The Reclaimers occupied the Caltrans homes in El Sereno around the beginning of the California’s COVID-19 lockdown in mid-March 2020. They did so to make a statement about the state keeping these homes empty, while tens of thousands of Angelenos struggled to stay housed.
Caltrans allowed them stay and leased the homes to HACLA, which offered Flores and the other Reclaimers temporary agreements allowing them to remain until the end of 2022. In exchange, HACLA promised to help them find permanent housing, contracting with the service provider PATH for this purpose.
HACLA filed eviction cases against many of the Reclaimers two years ago when their temporary housing agreements ended. In late March, more than five years after the Reclaimers first occupied the homes, two judges sided with HACLA, approving the evictions of at least four Reclaimer households.
Some Reclaimers already been evicted or left the homes after accepting money from HACLA. Others are still negotiating settlements with HACLA that could include monetary assistance and permanent housing elsewhere.
Ruby Gordillo accepted one such settlement. The terms were $20,000 and 75 days to leave her home — she has until the beginning of June — plus moving costs covered. She said that accepting the deal was a difficult decision. After years of activism, she questioned whether she was a “sell out.” But she said her life has changed — six years ago, she wasn’t thinking of her family. “I was just thinking of making the state shake a little in their pants,” Gordillo said.
Now, the circumstances are different for the mother of three. “I have to think of my family,” Gordillo said. “And I can’t think that being in the street is gonna help us out.”
Flores, by contrast, was offered a similar deal to Gordillo, but decided not to take it. He was concerned that if he left his home, he wouldn’t have a claim to the land under California’s Roberti Act. The law gives long-term occupants of former freeway properties the right to buy their homes at below-market prices before they’re sold to anyone else.
Many of the Reclaimers, including Flores, are involved in a separate case that was dismissed on Dec. 4, and is now under appeal. The case will determine whether they qualify as “occupants” entitled to Roberti Act rights to purchase their homes.
An eviction order was filed for Flores in early April. Last week, the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department (LASD) served him a notice to vacate his home or be locked out within five days. Flores said he has a plan for when they come, bolstered by 20 or so community members from El Sereno and other parts of L.A.
Additional change is coming to the neighborhood as Caltrans seeks to sell off its long-held properties. A spokesperson for HACLA said the agency is winding down its transitional housing program so that Caltrans can sell these homes. Caltrans spokesperson Eric Menjivar said 31 of the agency’s Caltrans homes in El Sereno have sold so far. Caltrans owns more than 160 single-family homes in that neighborhood. Last week, Caltrans invited housing groups to submit offers on another batch of El Sereno homes that they own.
Flores struggles with health issues, including sores on his feet from diabetes. Without this home, he fears he will likely die on the streets, he said. “ Who is supposed to give shelter to the homeless elders and families with children?” he asked.
On Sunday, Flores sent an open letter to LA County Sheriff Robert Luna, urging him to stop the eviction. “It is against your character, your mission and your good conscience to participate in this unjust eviction. I urge you to declare yourself a conscientious objector and refuse to carry on this wickedness.”
In a written statement, LASD said that they would carry out the eviction as ordered by the court, calling it was their “legal obligation.”
Frustration mounts over a lack of suitable housing
LA Public Press spoke to several Reclaimers who said HACLA and PATH didn’t do much to help them find permanent housing. They contend that they couldn’t afford the housing listings they were offered, which were also far from their communities in El Sereno.
Spokespeople for HACLA and PATH said case workers regularly met with the Reclaimer families in their program and worked with them on individual housing plans. HACLA’s Director of Asset Management Tina Booth said the agency has offered “case management, housing search assistance, and the opportunity for settlements” to the five households whose evictions were approved in court.
PATH spokesperson Tyler Renner declined to comment on individual cases, but said in general the agency offered clients “fair market rate” apartments, affordable housing lotteries and waitlists, shared housing and permanent supportive housing. He said people declined these opportunities based on location, layout, and affordability despite offers of rental assistance, and due to lack of follow-through on listings and housing vouchers.
Gordillo said that when it came to permanent housing, PATH’s assistance amounted to flyers with housing listings on them.”That wasn’t the type of assistance that I needed,” she said.
Arturo Gomez is a lawyer for Flores and three other Reclaimer households who signed temporary lease agreements with HACLA and are now being evicted. LA Public Press reviewed Flores’ participant agreement, which explicitly said that he was not a HACLA tenant. But Gomez argued that Flores and the other Reclaimers had lived in their current homes for several years and that HACLA treated them as tenants.
He argued that the agreements that his clients signed, known as license agreements, were in fact lease agreements.
“ The whole document has essentially the hallmarks of a lease,” Gomez said. “But I’m thinking, the courts don’t wanna recognize that because quite frankly, as I’ve noticed in my three years of practice in unlawful detainer court, there seems to be a presumption of liability against tenants in general.”
Different deals for different Reclaimers
One Reclaimer, Araceli Martinez, refused to sign any HACLA temporary lease agreement after occupying a Caltrans home.
As a result, Caltrans filed an ejectment action against her. Unlike an eviction case where tenants have rights and defenses, an ejectment simply requires the property owner to prove they own the land — Martinez has no tenant protections since she never signed an agreement with anyone.
Martinez said that PATH visited her in November 2020, asking her to sign the agreement, and offering her placement in shelters if she didn’t have housing by the time the agreement expired, but she refused those as well. “ I don’t wanna go back to another shelter. I’ve been there,” she said, having previously lived at a shelter on Skid Row, which she described as a “rough” place to stay. “I just stood my ground.”
In April, after a lengthy court process, Martinez chose to leave her home. She went to her mother’s house in Moreno Valley, near Riverside, Calif.
Unlike HACLA’s offers to Flores and Gordillo, Caltrans didn’t offer her any relocation assistance.
“We tried to get the best outcome possible, but were confused by how adamantly Caltrans’s legal team opposed any settlement proposals that involved relocation assistance, especially given the offers to other tenants in similar Caltrans-owned properties,” said Max Singer, her attorney.
He also pointed out that “litigating the case for over a year almost certainly consumed far more resources in taxpayer dollars than providing assistance getting into a new place possibly could have.”
Caltrans didn’t comment specifically on Martinez’s eviction, but spokesperson Eric Menjivar confirmed that Caltrans did pursue “an unlawful detainer action on an illegal occupant.” “This person left the property voluntarily after a judge sided with Caltrans,” he said.
“I don’t wish to share my story with politicians anymore. I don’t think they care.”
Ruby Gordillo said that as part of her settlement with HACLA, the agency agreed to help her find permanent housing. The agency sent her a list of units that were large enough for her husband and three children.
The trouble is that Gordillo earns minimum wage, and even the houses HACLA sent her — around $2,800 for a four-bedroom apartment — stretch her budget.
“ I guess if we’re looking at market rate, I guess it’s a good deal,” she said. But, “if we’re being real … that’s frickin’ expensive.
Despite the challenges, she’s not losing hope yet. “I am a wishful dreamer and I’m just hoping that somehow it’s gonna work.”
Reclaimer Martha Escudero also chose to negotiate with HACLA and broke with other Reclaimers who were more militant about enduring the legal process, drumming up favor with elected officials and negotiating with Caltrans until the very end. “ I don’t wish to share my story with politicians anymore,” Escudero said. “I don’t think they care.”
She asked that HACLA find her an apartment close to El Sereno and the community she relies on, especially as a single mother. She said the agency agreed to help her find Section 8 housing for her and her two daughters in a nearby neighborhood, subsidize her rent and moving costs, and give her sufficient time to move.
Escudero insisted that HACLA help her find an apartment close to both her job in East LA and her daughters’ schools. One of Escudero’s daughters attends an indigenous school, while another attends an “unschooling” program where curriculum is self-directed.
“The girls’ schools are very specific to their needs and I can’t find them anywhere else,” she said.
Escudero credits community support with enabling her strong negotiations with HACLA. She and other organizers urged the public to call the agency on behalf of her and other Reclaimers. This proved valuable recently, when Escudero said HACLA tried to reduce their offer of monetary assistance and the time offered to move by half.
“That’s why I think advocacy and having supporters to help advocate for you is really important… because I don’t think I would’ve gotten here without that support and in terms of having some power in negotiating,” she said.
Despite knowing that they will soon have to leave, both Gordillo and Escudero said they don’t regret occupying the El Sereno homes. Gordillo said she even feels victorious for managing to stay housed for so long.
“ I think, though this phase of reclaiming our homes has come to a conclusion, it’s not the end of our fight for housing,” she said.
“We still very much have a lot of work … to find the network and the allies that we need to work alongside to create actual affordable housing, maybe social housing or public housing, that actually fits for the community.”
LA Public Press is an independent newsroom that publishes news in support of a healthier Los Angeles. The non-profit does journalism that interrogates systems of power while supporting those trying to build more equitable and resilient communities.