‘Heroine’ in Anti-Gang Struggle Ousted as Manager of Apartments

North Hollywood apartment manager Viviana Guerra, a single mother of seven, has been hailed as a heroine for putting five gang members behind bars despite harassment and death threats. But her boss says she’s bad for business.

Exactly a year after Guerra began her one-woman cleanup of the area around the London Manor Apartments a block from the North Hollywood police station, she received a terse letter last Thursday informing her “that effective immediately you are being relieved of your position as apartment manager. . . . Your full cooperation on a changeover to a new manager will be greatly appreciated.”

In losing the job, Guerra also could lose the apartment that went with it.

Larry Jordan, owner of Park Place Management of Northridge, which bought the apartment complex’s previous management company a month ago, acknowledges that Guerra “did a good job cleaning out the building of drugs and gang activity.” But he said Guerra hadn’t been renting out enough apartments. Of the 20 units in the building, seven are vacant. And, he said, she’d been “making negative comments” to prospective tenants about the neighborhood’s troubles.

“Anytime she talked to somebody, it seemed to be very negative,” Jordan said. “I’m just trying to put some fresh blood into the building and see if someone else can do a better job.”

A police detective, a prosecutor and a fellow tenant said they are amazed by Jordan’s logic. They say many neighborhood buildings have vacant apartments because of the gangs in the area.

Earlier, Guerra won a commendation from the state attorney general’s office for her courage in aiding police and prosecutors, and for testifying in court against gang members despite threats that her children would be injured.