Residents allege wrongful eviction

  TYSON EVANS The apartment building on 522 Landfair Avenue
was shut down Monday after the City Attorney’s office received
numerous complaints of noise disturbances and other violations.

By Jamie Hsiung
Daily Bruin Contributor

A live-in program for recovering alcoholics and drug addicts was
shut down Monday after pressure from the city attorney led to the
alleged eviction of the program’s director, participants and
other non-participating tenants.

The city attorney directed the owner, Raphael Nissel, to fix
problems related to the program, located in a 14-unit building at
522 Landfair Ave. amid student housing, after police received
numerous complaints ranging from noise violations to assault during
the past three years.

The purpose of the sober living house was to provide support and
residential housing to people recovering from alcohol or drug abuse
through a 12-step program where tenants would meet and discuss
problems they might be having.

Nissel ended up evicting the director, William Hinton in
response, according to the City Attorney’s office. A lawyer
for one of the tenants said the rest of the residents of the
complex, which included both program participants and regular
tenants, were also evicted as a result.

Nissel declined to comment on the alleged evictions, saying it
was a legal matter. He has no plans yet for the building.

The director of the sober living house was evicted on Jan. 8
after Nissel obtained a court order, according to Asha Greenberg,
head of the city attorney’s office for the Citywide Nuisance
Abatement Program.

Hinton’s wife and administrator of the program, Denise
Hinton, speaking on behalf of her husband, who declined to comment,
denied they were evicted.

“We weren’t closed or evicted. We decided to
relocate, that’s all,” she said, declining to give
reasons why they’ve relocated to another part of West Los
Angeles.

According to some tenants of 522 Landfair ““ nicknamed
“The Crackhouse” by neighbors ““ the 12-step
program at the heart of the sober living house doesn’t
exist.

“More residents end up using drugs instead of staying away
from them,” tenant William Wilde said.

“For the two years that I’ve been here, there
hasn’t been any sign of a 12-step program,” said tenant
Kenny Farnsworth, who moved out Feb. 1.

Hinton declined to comment about the 12-step program.

According to Nancy Greenstein, a spokeswoman for the UC Police
Department, the phone calls they’ve received over the past
three years about the complex went beyond the norm.

“We’ve gotten an array of calls from minor ones to
assaults, including an assault with a deadly weapon,”
Greenstein said.

Recently, however, the Los Angeles Fire Department has received
fewer calls.

“There hasn’t been anything major going on,”
said Chief Larry Schneider of the LAFD’s ninth battalion.
“The calls have subsided compared to last year.”

Between Jan. 1 and Oct. 23 of 2000, LAFD paramedics dealt with
29 emergency incidents for drug-related problems and other
incidents at the complex, Schneider said.

Wilde, who chose to stay in a sober living house because it was
relatively inexpensive at $435 per month, said neither he nor any
resident received an official notice to leave.

Wilde and Kenny Farnsworth decided to remain because, not only
were their rents paid to the first of February, there were no
grounds for their eviction.

According to Wilde though, he and the rest of the residents were
told at a barbeque on Jan. 5 that they were to leave as soon as
possible.

Since then, Wilde and Farnsworth said the utilities have been
shut off for the past three to four weeks, that there’s been
no hot water for the past two weeks, and no heat ever.

On Feb. 6, Wilde said sheriff’s deputies came to the
complex to remove them from the premises.

Nissel would not confirm or deny the allegation, but said
“everything I did was legally right. Everything went through
my attorney, went through the court.”

Denise Hinton said: “We gave them ample time to leave,
since these (participants) are all on medication … we would never
expect them to be able to pack that quickly.”

Some UCLA students living around the area reported strange
occurrences at all times of the day.

“Sometimes I get woken up at 12:30 in the afternoon to the
sound of police sirens. You hear police sirens all the time around
here,” said Babak Davari, a fourth-year medical student
living on Landfair Avenue.

Hopefully, said Shelley Taylor, director of the local community
group North Village Improvement Committee, the resources of police
and fire departments can be concentrated on other emergencies
now.

“The neighborhood will be much safer now that (the sober
living program) is gone,” Taylor said.

Taylor said she met with the Citywide Nuisance and Abatement
program in the past and forwarded them the complaints she had
received.

The complex at 522 Landfair used to house the fraternity Sigma
Alpha Mu before they lost their charter about five years ago.

“The place is as good and as bad as a fraternity gets.
There’s some noise, there’s some drinking ““ but
it’s the same thing you’d expect from a
fraternity,” Joel Lopez, the on-site manager of the next-door
apartment, said.

“I’d still rather have them next door than a
fraternity ““ they’re cleaner and they’re very
responsive to the complaints I’ve had,” Lopez
continued.

“But I think a lot of the nearby tenants are uncomfortable
with having people that have problems with the law living
nearby,” he added.

Denise Hinton said her tenants weren’t bad people.

“We’ve been unnoticed for a long time,” she
said. “Most of our tenants are good people, but there were
some bad apples that used to live in the building.”