Janet Favela is making one of her regular visits to the Boyle Hotel. The 25-year-old organizer with East Los Angeles Community Corp. is carrying a stack of fliers in a brightly colored bag emblazoned with the image of Mexico City's famous Garibaldi Plaza, a popular destination for mariachis.
Favela walks through a gate shuttering the front door and proceeds up a long staircase in the four-story residential hotel, built in 1889. She proudly points out some of the changes her agency has made to the shabby Boyle Heights building: newly painted hallways, security cameras and clean bathrooms.
The nonprofit organization bought the hotel a year ago, promising to restore it from slum-like conditions while preserving it as an affordable residence. Most tenants are among the dozens of mariachi musicians who gather daily in the nearby Mariachi Plaza looking for work.
This day, Favela is handing out fliers about free tax preparation services offered by her agency. But when she knocks on doors, few tenants answer. When they do, they look at her skeptically, grab a flier and quickly shut the door.
It's been the same response for months. It doesn't matter whether East Los Angeles Community Corp. is offering free computer classes or inviting tenants to community meetings to solicit their input on the building's renovation. Residents distrust the nonprofit's promises to help them.
Favela, whose family was displaced years ago when Staples Center was built downtown, looks resigned as she leaves the building. She thinks her agency's efforts to renovate the hotel may be the last chance to preserve a community landmark as affordable housing.
"People don't see the urgency," she said. "This is our attempt at trying to keep a part of Boyle Heights alive."
In 2004, the mariachis waged a public battle over the fate of the Boyle Hotel, saying the evangelical congregation that owned it had allowed already dire living conditions to worsen.
When the nonprofit stepped in to buy the building, the move was greeted as a victory for local residents who worried about the tide of new development planned around the $900-million Gold Line commuter rail extension, which would include a plaza stop.
One year later, residents say the new owner is just as bad as the old -- pushing them out of the hotel by making living conditions unbearable. The tensions underscore the difficulties the agency has encountered in a community that fears the many changes gentrification brings, especially higher rents.
