Years ago, as California stretched its freeways across cities and suburbs like so many ribbons of progress, it damaged and dissected many urban neighborhoods, buying up and tearing down thousands of homes, most occupied by Black or Latino families.
It was a disgraceful chapter in this country’s long story of land grabbing, which for decades robbed people of color of their homes, livelihoods and future wealth.
Today California, like other states, is trying to repair some of that damage. It’s restoring a few parks and streets linking neighborhoods. It’s encouraging the return of a few ill-gotten properties to their rightful owners — see the 2022 restoration of Bruce’s Beach land to a Black Los Angeles-area family more than a century after government officials stole it.
And California is selling off hundreds of properties its transportation department, Caltrans, took over during six decades of public projects. I wish I could say the state was making progress at healing old scars, but this brand of reparations is still in its infancy here. And there’s still racism, opposition, unfairness and bureaucratic bungling wrapped up in some of the efforts.
The Legislature recently approved a bill that would create a pathway to restore properties that state and local governments seized, or purchased by force, through eminent domain. State Sen. Steven Bradford’s Senate Bill 1050 says the state would help people regain land taken by any government entity with racial motivations or help obtain fair compensation. The bill still needs the governor’s signature to become law.
“The power of eminent domain has been abused to move Black and brown people off their land,” Bradford said during a recent committee hearing, “to destroy homes, to devastate opportunities for families to build generational wealth … This type of injustice also occurred in San Francisco, Oakland, Los Angeles, San Diego, Palm Springs, and Russell City, just to name a few.”
State Sen. Steven Bradford, a Gardena Democrat, listens to testimony during a hearing at the state Capitol in Sacramento on Feb. 22, 2023. Photo by Rahul Lal, CalMatters
Sometimes the seizures turned violent. In the 1950s and 1960s, the city of Palm Springs burned and bulldozed hundreds of homes owned by Black and Latino people in the famed Section 14 area. Now survivors and their families are locked in contentious negotiations with the city, which has offered $4.3 million total — or roughly $29,500 each for 145 families — while their lawyer is seeking $9 million.
“They have lost out on that generational wealth that should be theirs,” said Assemblymember Isaac Bryan, a Culver City Democrat.
Even when race isn’t the obvious motivation for a government taking land, communities of color often are the ones most harmed. They, too, should be the ones benefiting most when a government tries to repair the damage. That isn’t always the case, though.
Recently Caltrans began selling off 500-plus residential properties it bought or seized decades ago along a stretch of Southern California dubbed the 710 Corridor, for a road project that never took shape.
Now some residents in those neighborhoods say they’re being shut out of the sale process, even as they try to buy homes they’re currently living in. A few are fighting evictions and others are competing with nonprofits and city agencies to bid on homes.
First: The vacant Maycrest Bungalows in the El Sereno neighborhood in Los Angeles on Aug. 13, 2024. The units are at risk of being torn down by a housing authority, though preservationists say the bungalows have historic significance. Last: Raymond Gutierrez, left, board member of the Bungalow Collective Committee, and Roberto Flores walk around the Maycrest Bungalows on Aug. 13, 2024. Photos by Zaydee Sanchez for CalMatters
Trying to save the bungalows are members of the Bungalow Collective Committee, left to right, Saul Contrera, Raymond Gutierrez, Roberto Flores and Joanne Nickolasm, at the Maycrest Bungalows in Los Angeles on Aug. 13, 2024. Photo by Zaydee Sanchez for CalMatters
On paper, state law requires the state to prioritize former property owners and current residents in the sale of occupied properties. But in a number of cases along the 710 Corridor — a 6-mile stretch through eastern Los Angeles, Pasadena and South Pasadena where Caltrans once sought to extend the 710 freeway — loopholes in the law and opaque screening practices are compounding new harms onto old harms.
It’s something Caltrans and state lawmakers should change. Existing residents of this scarred neighborhood should have equal, if not better, access to all the houses for sale, not just the occupied ones. And they should have equal footing when bidding against nonprofit developers and city agencies vying for the homes.
Also the criteria for selecting buyers should be openly disclosed — not shrouded in secrecy and legalese. That way would-be buyers who get turned down would know how to get a better shot at the next batch of homes Caltrans puts up for sale.
“A lot of those communities have been cut out of the process of decision-making for decades,” said Andrew Salimian, director of advocacy for the LA Conservancy, which seeks to preserve historic and cultural resources. “These communities have not been given due process, in terms of what they want to see happen. Now is the chance to ask them what they want to happen. That’s restorative justice.”
Landscape of lowered expectations
Restorative justice has been a long time coming. Throughout the country during the 1960s, urban renewal and roadway projects leveled about 37,000 homes a year, often in Black or Latino neighborhoods. People who weren’t pushed out of their homes were left with a landscape of lowered expectations: Their homes lost economic value and their neighborhoods became neglected, lacking government or private investment.
In northwest Pasadena, Caltrans flattened 1,500 homes in Black and low-income neighborhoods, displacing more than 4,000 residents, to prepare for the 710 expansion. Later, when the 710 project floundered, Caltrans became a neglectful landlord. Some properties that it left vacant fell into disrepair. Others Caltrans rented but failed to ensure were well-maintained.
A state audit called it “poor management,” adding that Caltrans rented properties to state employees at 57% below-market rate, calling it “a prohibited gift of public funds” that violated state law. Caltrans also overpaid for property repairs but didn’t make sure the work was done well, the audit said.
More recently, some state lawmakers criticized Caltrans for leaving homes vacant during the COVID emergency, which led to squatters moving in. The squatters — who called themselves reclaimers — spoke to TV news crews and sued to halt their evictions. Ultimately the Los Angeles Housing Authority decided to lease 26 homes from Caltrans, to allow the reclaimers to use them as “transitional housing” for up to two years.
That didn’t end the controversy. Some tenants who wanted to buy their homes but weren’t able to have organized and protested. Several have mounted lawsuits that are taking years to resolve.
“These people are eligible to buy those houses, but instead of Caltrans offering to sell the houses to them, they are trying to evict them,” said Gilbert Saucedo, a lawyer who represented some of the residents. “They’ve been trying to evict them for a year and a half now.”
Isabel Lomeli is a Caltrans tenant in the El Sereno neighborhood of Los Angeles who has tried in vain to buy the one-bedroom duplex unit she lives in. She sent a videotaped “letter” to state Sen. María Elena Durazo, asking the LA Democrat for help, to no avail. She also tried and failed to buy a two-bedroom Caltrans home.
Isabel Lomeli and her daughter, Gianna, embrace in the kitchen of their home in El Sereno, as they talk about all the renovations their small kitchen needs, on Sept. 9, 2024. The pair have lived in the Caltrans-owned duplex unit for 14 years. Photo by Zaydee Sanchez for CalMatters
Recently she applied to buy a third Caltrans home, which had been sold to the San Gabriel Valley Habitat for Humanity, and just learned from the nonprofit that it is selling the current batch of homes to other people.
Each time Lomeli was rebuffed she was given different reasons, she said: “I’m back to square one, with no options and no concrete answers.”
Her despondence is tinged with bitterness. Lomeli grew up in a Caltrans home and now is raising her 8-year-old daughter and a Beagle-Rhodesian Ridgeback named Frida in a smaller one. She loves her community, which she says is multicultural and close-knit.
“The neighborhood is quiet,” she said. “I like that I have a driveway and can park off the street. I like that I have a big yard, front and back. And I like the trees in the neighborhood.”
What she doesn’t like, she says, is the higher priority that state officials seem to be giving to the nonprofits and city agencies than to individuals who live in the neighborhoods in the sale of these homes.
Isabel Lomeli picks vegetables from her garden in the backyard of their home in El Sereno on Sept. 9, 2024. She says she can’t afford to buy the whole duplex but wanted to buy her home. Photos by Zaydee Sanchez for CalMatters
Although state law gives existing residents priority in sales of occupied Caltrans homes, for unoccupied or historic properties state law allows Caltrans to sell them first to nonprofits and city agencies. The law was changed in recent years to allow them to buy these homes at lower prices — either at prices Caltrans originally paid several decades ago or at a “reasonable price.”
Right of occupancy
State officials through Eric Menjivar, a spokesman, object to any criticism that the process is unfair. They say Caltrans is adhering to state law and is giving priority to residents before agencies and nonprofits — in occupied dwellings. Residents received letters first letting them know the Caltrans properties are available for purchase at an “affordable” price.
In fact, of the 133 properties Caltrans has sold or has under escrow as of mid-August, more than a third are going to occupants. However, nearly half are set to be sold or leased to city agencies and about a quarter are being taken by nonprofit developers.
By law, the nonprofits and city agencies must use the properties to make affordable housing available, which means that if they sell the houses for full value, they must use the proceeds to build other affordable housing. The San Gabriel Habitat for Humanity officials have said they’ll save at least half their Caltrans homes for people who live or work in El Sereno.
Learn more about legislators mentioned in this story.
Durazo was instrumental in changing state law affecting the sale of the El Sereno homes, letting nonprofits and cities buy the properties at the low, low prices Caltrans paid for them decades ago. She did not return calls for comment. In a statement, she said her bill allows nonprofit housing developers and city entities to more quickly snap up and redevelop Caltrans properties into livable, affordable housing.
“Current tenants will continue to have a first right of occupancy, regardless of which entity purchases the property,” she wrote.
What is hard to quantify are the subtle ways that neighborhood residents have been denied. Some, like Lomeli, who live in multi-family dwellings, find it almost impossible to qualify to buy their properties.
Others, like neighborhood activist Roberto Flores, had to jump through hoops — in his case forming a cooperative land trust and finding a partner — to bid on empty Caltrans homes. So far, of 37 houses for sale in one batch, the neighborhood land trust was only able to acquire one, while several nonprofits and the LA Housing Authority were ranked highest to buy the rest.
Flores, an El Sereno resident for 47 years, said he and his wife used to rent a Caltrans home when they both were teachers. They have since moved, but their relatives are in court, trying to buy that house — against Caltrans’ objections, he said.
“The whole idea is to have some shelter for your family, to pass on to their children,” he said. “Don’t try to make money off it.”
An activist in the El Sereno neighborhood in Los Angeles, Roberto Flores has been trying to save the Maycrest Bungalows and to buy other Caltrans properties in the neighborhood through a land trust. Photo by Zaydee Sanchez for CalMatters
It’s hard to tell why Caltrans is choosing some buyers over others. Caltrans officials refused requests for an interview and would only answer written questions through Menjivar, who emailed, “The sole intent for purchasing these homes 60 years ago … was to construct a project to connect the 710 freeway to the 210 freeway in Pasadena and, ultimately, demolish the homes to accomplish this. Now that the project is no longer going to happen, the goal is to sell these homes and provide a pathway for homeownership for our tenants.”
But out of hundreds of homes for sale, only a few dozen are going to residents. That’s not enough to even begin to heal old wounds, much less to compensate for years of neighborhood destruction, racism and neglect.