Letters to the Editor: What tagged-up, rotting mansions reveal about L.A.’s housing crisis

To the editor: Your article on vandalized mansions in the Hollywood Hills illustrates one aspect of how wealth inequality exacerbates our complex housing shortage.

The owner of these two single-family residences does not live in either, and both have apparently been vacant for years. While this situation is newsworthy for the neglect of the homes by their owner and the unfortunate publicization of these homes as targets for various miscreants, it is not that unusual for superwealthy individuals to own multiple homes, some of which they rarely, if ever, use.

Yes, it’s a free country and all that. But I can’t help feeling a twinge of guilt by generational association when I see how society’s ability to share, empathize and moderate our behavior has devolved on my cohort’s watch.

Susan Wolfson, Glendale

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To the editor: I was struck by two recent stories of vandalized mansions, and by the way Bel-Air resident Fred Rosen, one-time chief executive of Ticketmaster, placed blame on “woke” Los Angeles leaders for lapses in security.

I would place more scrutiny on the seemingly nonchalant ability of the moneyed few to let valuable real estate sit empty while so many in our city (and the wide world beyond) are without homes.

Tanya Goodman, Los Angeles