Squatters’ Rights : Apartment Buildings Abandoned After Quake Attracting Scavengers

SYLMAR — John Alvarez lives in what might be charitably called a mixed neighborhood.

The heroin addicts keep to the apartments near the flood control channel. The hookers and crack dealers work the cul-de-sac across the street. Gang members are infrequent visitors, dropping by occasionally to drink some beers, bust a few windows and leave some more scrawl.

And the homeless find a quiet corner where they can.

There is a definite hierarchy among the inhabitants living in the string of abandoned apartment buildings that surround the intersection of Hubbard Street and El Dorado Avenue in Sylmar.

Alvarez considers himself near the top of the heap. After all, he is working for his food and cigarette money.

Alvarez and two companions took a break Wednesday--in between carting off furniture, appliances and anything else of value--to talk about their informal recovery operation, also known as scavenging.

“I can get $5 for these,” he said, pointing to a set of window blinds.

For the past two months, Alvarez and dozens of others have been living in 11 or so apartment buildings in this neighborhood that were abandoned by residents after the Jan. 17 earthquake.

City officials have $20 million, but are seeking additional federal money for fences--even security guards--to seal off quake-damaged buildings left abandoned throughout the San Fernando Valley and Hollywood. Officials Tuesday identified 10 “ghost towns,” clusters of empty quake-ravaged buildings in Sylmar, Northridge, Canoga Park, Sherman Oaks and Hollywood. Adjacent neighbors and police have already noticed rising crime rates, which they attribute to the ghost towns.

But the Federal Emergency Management Agency has so far turned down requests for additional funds, saying it is a local problem.

Property owners in the Sylmar neighborhood say they don’t have the money to fix up their property or, in some cases, put up fencing.

Even the city signs ordering people away have long been torn down.

Not that they are really necessary. Huge cracks run across entire walls, overhangs pitch forward as if about to fall and there is broken glass everywhere. Most front doors are open or torn from their hinges. And inside, carpets have been ripped from the floors, appliances--even kitchen faucets--taken.

All that remain in many apartments are broken furniture, flies, paper trash, beer bottles, animal droppings and rotting food. In their haste to remove their possessions in the days following the earthquake, residents left behind only scraps of their lives here: a kindergarten report card, a brown teddy bear, empty prescription bottles, personal letters, a pair of shoes.

There is no running water and the electricity has been shut off. In several of the buildings, some squatters have managed to turn the electricity back on.

But without any fencing, even those dreary--and dangerous--conditions fail to discourage those seeking free shelter.

Those living here say as many as 50 people have passed through the buildings in the past three months.

But unlike some of his layabout neighbors, Alvarez said he isn’t opposed to putting in a day of work now and then.

“They’re gonna throw this stuff away. At least we can get some cigarettes and food out of it,” said Alvarez, dressed in shirt, pants and shoes found in one of the apartments.

He said he was among those who lost his apartment during the quake, and has been unable to find any construction work since then. So, he said he has lived in the abandoned buildings, moving from apartment to apartment, bunking in “whichever one is the cleanest.”

His companion, Jess Torres--another out-of-work laborer--holds up a clock radio that he hopes will fetch $5. “This is lunch, a hamburger and a soft drink,” he said.

The two homeless men are piling the stuff into the back of Terry Bratton’s pickup truck. Bratton has a home but said he is trying to keep a family afloat on disability payments. So he needs the extra income.

“I’m just scavenging what I can,” said Bratton, who lives in Sylmar. “We had someone who wanted a dresser but we haven’t been able to find one.”

Most of the first-floor air-conditioning units are gone from the apartments on the 14600 block of Hubbard Street. They were sold for $10 each, the same rate paid for refrigerators and washing machines, the men said.

A spokesman for the city attorney’s office said the men have no right to take the property. As a practical matter, they will not be prosecuted for the petty thefts, a misdemeanor, unless the owner of the property reports it stolen to police, said Ted Goldstein, a spokesman for the city attorney.

Even if that happens, what are they going to do to two homeless men? asked Alvarez. Put them in jail, give them a few free meals and a chance to shower, his friend answered.

The police occasionally conduct sweeps at the apartments but generally only arrest those with outstanding warrants or those who possess drugs, the men said.

So Alvarez and Torres return to work, asking Bratton about hauling out a mattress inside one of the apartments. He tells them to forget it.

“She put in an order for a single mattress but that’s a double,” Bratton said. “I’d charge her double but I don’t think she’d go for it.”

In a separate interview, Oscar Marquez, one of the building owners, said he has the same troubles as the scavengers.

“The problem is financing,” he said. That is why there is no fence and no guards.

Marquez said he asked the Small Business Administration for a loan of $400,000 to pay for $157,000 in needed repairs and to pay off loans on the building.

Unless he gets the money, he said, he cannot afford the repairs.

“Nobody is helping us yet, and we are broke,” he said.

Victory Nuguid, who manages six of the buildings on Hubbard Street owned by his father Al Nuguid, said he has tried unsuccessfully to board up the vacant buildings.

“They are tearing down the boards,” he said. “It’s getting ridiculous.”

Nuguid said he, too, is waiting for an SBA loan to repair the yellow-tagged buildings. If he doesn’t get the SBA loan, he said, he hopes the city will loan him the money. But the failure of a $2-billion state bond issue for quake repair earlier this month forced the state to cancel a $500-million program which was designed specifically to help apartment owners restore their properties.

“We are not going to give up on these buildings,” Nuguid said.

But Bratton said he may soon. Most of the good stuff has already been sold.

“This was a gold mine,” he said, gesturing to the string of two-story, brown-and-tan apartment buildings. “But they all run out eventually.”

Times staff writer Hugo Martin contributed to this story.

Quake Damage Haunts Troubled Sylmar Area The neighborhood has the following distinguishing demographics: 11 og 13 apartment buildings stand empty as a result of earthquake damage 18% households in poverty 49% households with low income 36% of owners moved in between 1985-1990 77% of renters moved in between 1985-1990 Source: U.S. Census

Valley Ghost Towns Some condominiums and apartment buildings abandoned after the Jan. 17 Northridge earthquake ar now home to squatters. Officials have identified 10 such “ghost towns.” Granada Hills 6 Vacant condo or apartment complexes 7 Vacant complexes *Sherman Oaks 11 Vacant condos or apartment complexes *Canoga Park Eight Vacant condo or apartment complexes *Northridge 18 Vacant condo or apartment complexes *Sylmar 19 Vacant condo or apartment complexes * MAIN STORY: A1