Eviction

The Los Angeles City Council voted Friday to provide up to $322,000 in relocation money to dozens of low-income tenants who must move from a South Los Angeles apartment building deemed unsafe by city inspectors. Tenants were given eviction notices last month after housing officials concluded that owner John Callaghan had illegally converted what was supposed to have been a three-unit apartment building on 49th Street into as many as 44 separate living spaces — a warren of narrow hallways; tiny, shared bathrooms; and communal kitchens, much of it laced with unpermitted electrical and plumbing work.

Lauryn Hill does indeed have a record deal, she said Thursday on Tumblr, alleging inaccuracies in previous reporting on her deal with Sony. "Yes, I have recently entered into an agreement with Sony Worldwide Entertainment, to launch a new label, on which my new music will be released. And yes, I am working on new music. " In court proceedings Monday related to Hill's tax-evasion case, it was revealed by the prosecution that the former Fugee had inked a deal to receive $1 million for recording five songs, plus more cash if she completed a new album, according to the Newark Star-Ledger . Hill's sentencing in the case -- she pleaded guilty last summer to three misdemeanor counts of tax fraud -- was delayed by two weeks to give her a final chance to pay restitution to the tune of $504,000, the balance of her $554,000 criminal liability.

The afternoon phone call jolted Laird Jackson: Her 82-year-old father had just been evicted from the Huntington Beach board-and-care home where he had lived for several years. "I couldn't believe it," she said. "There was no notice until a marshal showed up at the door with a foreclosure notice. " Jackson's experience in January, unfortunately, is becoming commonplace in California, with incidents reported at board-and-care homes in Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside, Contra Costa, Alameda, San Mateo, Napa, Yolo and Placer counties.

Historical advocates in San Juan Capistrano argued that the jagged hills of southern Orange County were deep under water when dinosaurs first roamed the Earth. No land-roaming dinosaur - neither a T. rex , stegosaurus nor apatosaurus - would have come through unless lost at sea. Many things have changed since the water washed away: Missionaries built a majestic cathedral, settlers established what would become one of California's oldest neighborhoods and a thick cloud of swallows would flock back to their nests here each spring.

I can't tell you what a terrible disappointment I felt in reading David Reyes' article regarding the attempt to evict John Rogers (March 28). The actions of the landlord, Wycliffe Bible Translators, are indefensible. As a Jewish-Christian, I feel embarrassed and ashamed that a "Christian" organization would ever undertake such actions, especially under this present set of circumstances. Here we have a serviceman, with two young, impressionable children, being shown how some people express Christian tolerance and love.

BEIJING - The men who barged through Shen Jianzhong's door probably thought it was a routine assignment: Break in and beat Shen's family into submission. Forced evictions to make way for real estate development are an everyday occurrence in China, and the family may have seemed no different from any in that situation. It was only after they forced open the door, threw Shen's wife to the ground and began to beat her that they learned the 38-year-old Shen and his 18-year-old son are kung fu masters.

Los Angeles County residents saved a shooting victim from eviction this week. Rashaun Williams, 29, a home health aide and crossing guard, has been out of work since she was shot in both legs July 11 on Imperial Highway in South Los Angeles, caught in gang crossfire while visiting relatives. "It changed my life. It just changed everything completely," the single mother said. "I haven't been able to provide for my daughter like I want to." The Times reported Williams' story in August.

A jobless man shot and killed two people who were trying to evict him Tuesday, then turned his shotgun on himself and committed suicide, police said. Charles Whitehouse, in his 60s, had been depressed over the breakup of his marriage and his wife's gaining a court order for possession of the house, neighbors said.

Code enforcement officer Jim Van Voorhis, with perhaps a very comfortable home and a good salary with all the associated benefits, has decided that a lot of people must be added to those already living in their cars or on the street ("Eviction Looms for Poor Families," Aug. 23). Maybe it hasn't occurred to Van Voorhis and those like him that the people are there because they can't find a better place to go. At the very least, if they must be forced to leave, it should be for a better, safer place.

Within hours of the dismantling of the largest of the remaining Occupy Wall Street-inspired encampments outside Los Angeles City Hall, organizers were framing the eviction as a new beginning. "City Hall and the occupation of City Hall was a potent and powerful symbol," said Mario Brito, an Occupy protester who was among the plaintiffs in a lawsuit filed Monday in an attempt to stop the city's action. But "our movement is not just made of symbols. " The end of the Los Angeles camp — and the Occupy Philadelphia site, which was dismantled the same night — could signal the end of public encampments as the Occupy movement's primary tactic.

Lauryn Hill is facing eviction from her New Jersey mansion, according to reports circulating Friday. The eight-time Grammy-winning singer-songwriter could be ousted from the South Orange mansion she's been living in since 2009. She stopped paying rent last month, TMZ reports, and now her landlord is trying to evict her. The former Fugees member was reportedly due in tenancy court earlier this week, according to South Orange Village Counsel Steve Rother ( via Patch). This proceeding is the latest in her personal financial struggles.

When the government came for his land, Doan Van Vuon fought back --  first with the law, then with a shotgun. The fish farmer used rifles and explosives to battle police and soldiers seizing his converted swampland, injuring several officers in the clash. His resistance made him a hero to dispossessed peasants fed up with losing property in Vietnam, where the government can confiscate farms and give little in return. Street protests erupted in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City over his case.

Question: When I moved into my apartment building about two years ago, I had a job as a physical therapy assistant. About three months ago, however, I had a bad bicycle accident, and now I can't work. Currently, my main source of income is disability insurance from my employer and state disability benefits. When the apartment manager saw me around the apartment complex during the day, she asked me whether I was still working. I explained to her that I was on disability. She seemed concerned about this and about a week later served me with a 60-day notice terminating my tenancy.

Low-income tenants fighting eviction will be disproportionately harmed by a Los Angeles County Superior Court plan to cut costs by reducing the number of courts handling landlord disputes, legal advocates for the poor say. The number of courthouses hearing such cases will be reduced from 26 to five throughout the county under a plan expected to be implemented by the end of June. Some people will have to travel up to 32 miles to litigate their cases, court officials said. For some, the trips could take several hours using public transportation and include transfers on multiple trains and buses, said Neal Dudovitz, executive director of Neighborhood Legal Services of Los Angeles County.

JERUSALEM -- Palestinian activists were evicted Sunday from a tent village they had set up Friday on a large plot of land east of Jerusalem that Israel has designated as the site of a new settlement. Israeli police raided the site known as E-1 after the Israeli government told the Supreme Court that evacuating the activists was a top national security matter. The court Friday had delayed eviction proceedings, giving the government six days to explain why it would want to remove the protesters.

BEIJING - The men who barged through Shen Jianzhong's door probably thought it was a routine assignment: Break in and beat Shen's family into submission. Forced evictions to make way for real estate development are an everyday occurrence in China, and the family may have seemed no different from any in that situation. It was only after they forced open the door, threw Shen's wife to the ground and began to beat her that they learned the 38-year-old Shen and his 18-year-old son are kung fu masters.

Gardena residents who deal drugs in rented apartments or houses may be evicted by their landlords under an urgency ordinance passed Tuesday by the City Council. Following the lead of the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors, which passed a similar ordinance in March, 1989, the council voted 4 to 0 in favor of the measure. Councilman Paul Tsukahara was absent. The Gardena ordinance, which is effective immediately, permits landlords to evict tenants for selling drugs on property owned by the landlord.

On one hand, Claremont has evolved into the quintessential college town--one of the few genuine places in Southern California. But places are made real by people, their culture and history. The seeming willingness of Claremont's City Council to disregard an entire neighborhood, in favor of a single landholder, smacks of an especially blatant callousness. The Arbol Verde neighborhood's destabilization by Claremont McKenna College's new rental policy--which evicts longtime residents in favor of a transient replacement contingent--is disturbing enough, but the fact that the City Council (to the dismay of the Planning Commission)

The pace of foreclosures in California is the lowest in five years, and lenders are doing more to modify troubled home loans than ever before. But in South Gate, where Ana Casas Wilson lives with her husband, James, and her mother, Rebecca, the complex legacy of the subprime lending boom lingers and the harsh lessons for lenders and borrowers remain fresh. Casas Wilson, 50, now nearly bedridden with terminal breast cancer and cerebral palsy, has lived in the 86-year-old house for 40 years, but the Wilsons haven't made a mortgage payment since July 2008.

Awakened by the sound of gunshots, Fanny Paiz opened her window and looked across the dark Inglewood street to a nightmare scene of bloodied neighbors and a house in flames. "I heard a man yelling," Paiz said. "Then I saw a lady run out into the street with a child in her arms. She was bleeding. She was standing in the middle of the street with the child, whose face was covered in blood. She fell down, screaming, 'He's shooting me. He's shooting me.' " Three other shooting victims were in the house, all members of the same family who police say were attacked before dawn Saturday by a rampaging neighbor who was being evicted.