You have commented 361 times on Rantburg.

Your Name
Your e-mail (optional)
Website (optional)
My Original Nic        Pic-a-Nic       
Bold Italic Underline Strike Bullet Blockquote Small Big Link Squish Foto Photo
-Lurid Crime Tales-
LA Squatter Dies Falling Out of Tree House He Built to Escape Eviction
2025-07-22
[Hot Air] It started way back in 1958 when the state decided to build a freeway that would run directly between Long Beach in south LA County up to the Pasadena area in north LA County. Most of the freeway was built in the mid-1960s but there was a section just about four miles long that never got completed. It was the northernmost section that would connect the freeway (now called the I-710) to an east-west freeway called the 210 freeway.

Because the state planned to complete the freeway eventually, it started buying up property it would need to build it. But resistance to the construction continued and about 8 years ago the state finally conceded that it would never happen. This created an unusual situation where CALTRANS, the state's transportation agency, owned about 400 homes for which it was the landlord. For many years CALTRANS was renting out the homes at relatively discounted rates, but some homes remained empty and boarded up as the state considered selling them off.

And that's where things got interesting. In March 2020, during the early days of the pandemic, a group of activists calling themselves Reclaiming Our Homes started moving into the empty homes claiming them for themselves.
Posted by:Besoeker

#2  Well, these are not the prior owners and therefore not protected by Prop 13. Just hand them the property tax notice with the new value.
Posted by: Procopius2k   2025-07-22 13:13  

#1  Must be from Tarzana.
Posted by: Super Hose   2025-07-22 05:55  

00:00