For the children living at 27 East St., Jan. 24 seemed like a
normal sunny Friday afternoon.
At 2:55 p.m., four of the kids returned from school. Each
strolled through the white picket fence in front of their house,
smiling.
Minutes later, three stern-faced men and a woman got out of
their cars and walked toward the front yard. Ray Proffitt,
Hollister’s senior building official, carried a stack of yellow
fliers under one arm. A Hollister Police officer served as an
escort in case members of the family reacted violently.
The city, after an inspection one week earlier by a team of
building inspectors, had decided to condemn the house that day. And
the two Spanish-speaking Mexican families
– without notice – suddenly had 72 hours to move out and find a
new home.
For the children living at 27 East St., Jan. 24 seemed like a normal sunny Friday afternoon.
At 2:55 p.m., four of the kids returned from school. Each strolled through the white picket fence in front of their house, smiling.
Minutes later, three stern-faced men and a woman got out of their cars and walked toward the front yard. Ray Proffitt, Hollister’s senior building official, carried a stack of yellow fliers under one arm. A Hollister Police officer served as an escort in case members of the family reacted violently.
The city, after an inspection one week earlier by a team of building inspectors, had decided to condemn the house that day. And the two Spanish-speaking Mexican families – without notice – suddenly had 72 hours to move out and find a new home.
For more than a year, 18 people crammed themselves into the cluttered home and its converted garage. Some had lived there for up to eight years.
“This is a really difficult situation the city is in,” Code Enforcement Officer Tim Burns said earlier that afternoon.
Waiting in the alley between the house and garage – with the classified section of a newspaper in hand – Sophie Smurthwaite greeted the team of building inspectors.
Smurthwaite, a Spanish-speaking liaison from a local Mormon church, had arrived ahead of the building officials to inform the families – a gesture to lessen the trauma.
After a brief interpreted conversation with a few of the adults, Proffitt began the official process of condemning the premises.
Family members grimly looked on. A 9-year-old boy walked over and stood next to the imposing Proffitt. The other building officials, some admittedly saddened by the situation, also silently watched.
Proffitt stapled two fliers next to the front entrance to the garage, one in English and one in Spanish. Six daunting words bolded each notice: “DO NOT ENTER. UNSAFE TO OCCUPY.”
“Do they understand why we’re posting it as unsafe?” Proffitt asked Smurthwaite, who relayed the question in Spanish to the family members.
Ventura Palma, the mother of five adult sons also living at 27 East St., replied, “We don’t understand.”
To them, the living conditions weren’t that bad, according to Smurthwaite. They didn’t even know the meaning of “slumlord.” They didn’t know they’d been tragically victimized, according to building officials, by an owner who lives in Salinas.
“They’re surprised by someone saying this is below standard,” Smurthwaite said, “that it’s not safe, that it’s not healthy.”
Building officials say Hollister has a serious problem with substandard housing – properties often riddled with health violations and crowded by multiple families. Condemning the house Jan. 24 was part of a wider effort to increase enforcement of slum conditions.
While officials continued to explain the immense dangers of the home, a steady stream of small children walked through a yard speckled by white rocks and garbage. Each boy and girl was smiling and playful, too young to understand the tragic event. In all, seven of the 18 residents were between the ages of 2 and 11.
The eldest son, Rudolpho Hernandez, 34, spoke up. He asked if the city will help them find a new home.
“No,” replied Burns, noticeably ill at ease. “It’s a situation we’re uncomfortable with.”
The Inspection
Police responded to a fight involving six men outside the house Jan. 8 and questioned two suspected to be involved. Officers entered the house and noticed the cruel conditions, which they immediately reported to the city’s building and code enforcement divisions.
In response, Proffitt put together a team for an inspection made up of three other building officials, Fire Marshal Mike O’Connor, two police officers and Smurthwaite.
Based on the police report, they had expected hazards. But they all expressed utter shock at what they saw.
“There was clutter everywhere,” Building Inspector Allen Contival said. “It was a lot of people and a lot of stuff in a small area.”
Plywood was boarded across a broken porch window of the front house, which, according to Proffitt, was the most livable of the three spaces. Aside from the home’s mess of scattered garbage and miscellaneous junk, the team observed numerous health violations. Toxic mold streaked the ceilings, and a couch used as a bed was pushed against a wall heater.
Burns said it went “from bad to worse” as they moved on to the two garage conversions. Pots, pans and empty food containers lay everywhere.
“There was more mold on ceilings and floors rotting,” Contival said.
A pungent smell of garbage ruminated throughout the house. Contival and Burns both observed several extension cords running across the floors. “That’s a fire waiting to happen,” Burns said.
Bird droppings smudged a bed and another heater was covered by furniture and boxes.
“If they would have used the wall heater,” Proffitt said, “it’s very likely there would have been a fire.”
As the inspection continued, a woman lifted a door in the floor that leads to the basement. There, officials probed through piles of spider-webbed junk. Shocked, Burns looked down at what appeared to be an animal skeleton, which officials concluded was that of either a cat or pit bull dog.
Eleven people in the garage conversion – including seven minors – lived in the inhuman conditions for almost two years.
The building inspectors met Jan. 23 with the city’s highest rung of officials – including Interim City Manager Ed Kreins – and decided to take action the next day. Burns said they had no choice because of health and safety issues involved.
“We’re not the bad guy in this thing,” he said. “We had to do what’s necessary.”
A rampant scale of slum housing
The tenants are the victims, according to Burns and other building officials. He said landlord Pedro Lozano was primarily at fault and knew about the hazards, the illegal garage conversion and the 18 people living in the cramped conditions. Lozano has a history of gross mistreatment toward tenants, according to Burns.
Many other landlords throughout Hollister, building officials said, have also taken advantage of large Mexican families living in substandard housing. Contival said it’s “quite widespread” in the city.
Smurthwaite estimated that 25 percent of Hollister’s population – including unreported illegal immigrants – live in conditions similar to those endured by the families at 27 East St.
Proffitt didn’t deny Smurthwaite’s claim. He couldn’t estimate a percentage of the population in slum housing because, he said, it would just be a guess.
“There’s no way to substantiate something like that,” he said. “We do know it’s more rampant than we had thought.”
Since hiring Burns as its first full-time code enforcement officer 10 months ago, the city has increased its enforcement efforts toward substandard housing. The action taken Jan. 24 was “new territory” that the city plans to revisit in the future, Burns said.
Proffitt said the conditions at the East Street home were the worst he’s seen in four years as a Hollister building official. But he doesn’t expect it’s the last time on that level.
“We anticipate there being more than just this isolated issue,” Proffitt said.
Hernandez said the conditions at their house are common in Hollister. His sister, 31-year-old Margarita Garcia, agreed.
“I know of other houses in worse condition and they haven’t condemned them,” she said.
As a sign of the city’s seriousness toward unsafe housing, the City Council passed an ordinance Jan. 6 that penalizes landlords whose negligence leads to a forced removal of the tenants. The owner would be responsible for paying a relocation assistance fee to the tenant, which would include moving costs or the difference between the old and new rent.
“The word will get out that we’re looking for this and monitoring this,” Burns said. “Property owners will automatically become more accountable.”
Burns said the families at the East Street location, who paid rent of $1,100 per month, would have easily qualified for the assistance. Unfortunately, the ordinance doesn’t take effect until late February.
The separation
Smurthwaite said the two families – the adults mostly migrant farm workers in San Benito County – are hopelessly looking for local housing. They can’t afford to separate family members and their incomes. And most landlords won’t allow 12 or 18 people in a single unit.
“What we’re going to find for them is another substandard house with a slumlord,” Smurthwaite said. “No management company will even look at them.”
After the notice was posted, Smurthwaite immediately started searching for housing. Her church – the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints – offered to pay for a hotel room for some of them. But lodging businesses in the area, she said, turned them away.
“Hotels didn’t want anything to do with Mexican families getting evicted,” Smurthwaite said. “If you’re a white person calling like me, sure, there’s room.”
Earlier in the week, Burns said the city may file a lawsuit against Lozano, although City Attorney Elaine Cass said she hasn’t yet made a decision.
The San Benito County LULAC Council contacted the California Rural Legal Assistance Association about suing the landlord in Small Claims Court. CRLA expressed interest in the case. And Smurthwaite thinks they would win because one of the family members, a 2-year-old girl, was born in the United States.
However, Hernandez has said the family will not pursue legal action. The family doesn’t resent Lozano, Hernandez said. Nor do they believe he did anything wrong.
The family members, most of whom illegally immigrated from Mexico within the past eight years, were appreciative that the landlord often allowed them to pay late rent.
“He (Lozano) had nothing to do with that (the condemning),” Garcia said.
Hernandez and Garcia did express discontent toward the city, though, because of the abrupt three-day notice.
“City officials didn’t care about the kids,” Garcia said.
As of this morning, the family members are separated, scattered throughout Hollister, sleeping at homes of relatives and friends. Three of them, including Hernandez, are staying with Smurthwaite.
She notified her own landlord they were staying at her house. He called her back Thursday and told her to “remove the junk” from the barn, or he’ll kick her out, according to Smurthwaite, who said she’s remarkably stressed.
“I’m just sick – physically really sick,” she said.
Garcia said she and other family members are struggling with the separation.
“We had always been together,” she said.
Proffitt said Lozano has “cooperated fully” this week and said he’ll take care of all the problems.
For Hernandez, Garcia and the other 16 people from 27 East St., that promise is probably too late.
