Squatters Rent Rooms in Abandoned Hospital

Harvey Glasser flew down from San Francisco recently to meet with a real estate agent at an abandoned hospital he owns in south Los Angeles.

But when he walked past the clinic’s empty reception area, he got quite a surprise: People were living in some of the rooms, as if they were apartments.

“There were about 20 people living there,” Glasser said. “Almost every room had a lock on the door.”

Now authorities are trying to sort out what appears to be a scam to rent out the rooms at the former Crenshaw Center Hospital to unsuspecting tenants.

It is common to find squatters in abandoned homes and even commercial buildings, said city housing inspectors. But they had never seen a community of them in a hospital before.

“This is the first time . . . that I’ve encountered this type of situation,” said Dennis Metts, a senior Los Angeles city building inspector. “It’s certainly creative.”

The squatters, who paid up to $400 a month per room, have been ordered to leave; those who remain will be forced out. Today, city health and building inspectors will do a walk-through to see how many tenants are in the 48-room facility in the 3800 block of Stocker Street. As many as 16 of the rooms were in use, and as many as eight are still occupied, inspectors and tenants said. Some residents said they rented the rooms--some with views of downtown--after answering an ad in a small community newspaper. Monthly payments were collected by a building security guard, Wil Slaughter. No leases were signed.

To Sandra Kimbel, 38, and her daughter Virginia, 10, a room in the building seemed like the perfect solution to their housing problem. Kimbel, a temporary worker whose husband recently died, said she could not afford her former apartment and had no choice.

But except for the views, the building is hardly the Ritz. Kimbel’s room has a vista but lacks a working toilet. The sink--next to a television set propped on top of a plastic bin--is full of stagnant, dirty water. The faucet drips nonstop.

The occupied rooms have standard hospital beds. In most, like Kimbel’s, the toilets don’t work. There is no hot water and no heat. In recent days, the smell of gas has been strong.

More than a dozen health violations, including evidence of raw sewage spilling into the kitchen, have been found by inspectors in the last month. Violations include pervasive mold in shower areas and the use of hot plates and unauthorized heaters in tenants’ rooms, said Richard Harris, the chief environmental health specialist for the city health department.

“That building was not designed as a residential facility,” Harris said.

Glasser, who is in the process of selling the hospital to local doctors, said he has been through several on-site managers over the years. He said it has been a difficult building to keep up because of vandalism and narcotics activity.

He added that he had no idea that people were living in the hospital until he discovered the squatters earlier this month.

“We couldn’t figure out why the utility bills were about $2,000 a month,” Glasser said. “It was all illegal, it was all wrong. I never authorized anyone to live in the building. I want people out and that place cleaned up.

“It should not be an eyesore for the community. It sure as heck is not an apartment building,” he said.

Glasser said he called city inspectors, who confirmed that the building should be vacated but added that they lacked the authority to evict the tenants.

Police officers said they realized that something was amiss when they began receiving landlord dispute calls from the old hospital, which was closed in the early 1990s. Officers said any violations are a civil matter and they are not going to press charges against anyone.

They added, however, that they have taken complaints about Slaughter and how he has treated the tenants.

“He was taking advantage of hard-working people,” said Officer Emada Castillo. “According to them, they thought it was OK [to live there].”

In an interview earlier this week, Slaughter acknowledged that he has been renting out rooms since January. He said he charged $350 a month for rooms with a view and $300 for those without. Slaughter said he did not inform Glasser about placing the ads in the Wave, a local newspaper.

He said he felt sorry for some of the residents, including Kimbel, who told him that she had been living in a car with her daughter.

“Actually, this is good living for the amount of money,” Slaughter said. “She and her daughter didn’t have anyplace to go.”