Residents say a partially demolished building on Huntington Drive has become a recurring homeless encampment, raising new questions about code enforcement, housing development and neighborhood accountability in Los Angeles.
Residents of El Sereno say a botched demolition on a major thoroughfare has become a symbol of the tension between the city’s push for new housing and its ability to enforce the rules along the way.
At the entrance to El Sereno, a working-class, largely Latino neighborhood on the city’s Eastside, a sign on the median of Huntington Drive welcomes visitors to the community. Directly across the street sits a different kind of landmark: a growing homeless encampment that has taken root in the shell of a half-demolished commercial building.
The encampment traces back to a dispute over a proposed 111-unit apartment complex at 5100 East Huntington Drive, put forward by the developer SoLa Impact. In April 2025, city officials opened a code enforcement case after neighbors complained that the site had been left exposed. Inspectors later cited the developer for demolishing the building without required permits.
A Neighborhood Watching It Return
In recent weeks, residents in the community Facebook group El Sereno 90032 have documented what they describe as the encampment’s resurgence, even after periodic cleanups. Timothee said he had spotted people back at the site while driving down Huntington Drive, and called on the council district’s representatives to “get a handle on this or it’s only going to get worse.” Sabina, posting days later, simply noted: “Noticed today that, they’re coming back.”
The frustration in the group extends beyond the encampment itself to a sense that enforcement is inconsistent. Elizabeth pointed out that the grass median is only mowed ahead of scheduled events like the neighborhood’s July parade, and argued that a nearby war memorial goes largely uncared for, while resources are focused elsewhere in the district. Jenard made a similar point more pointedly, saying street cleanings continue on schedule “but not a thing” is done about the encampment or a second one along the railroad tracks near the Alhambra border — and suggested residents document the site on video and send it to local television stations to force a response, since he believed funding attention was concentrated on Boyle Heights instead.
Not everyone in the group agreed on the remedy. When Mark questioned whether putting up a fence around the site would only ensure “NO ONE could use it,” it followed an earlier suggestion in the thread that fencing might be a solution. Jenard, in a separate comment, observed that no one seems to venture onto the adjoining grassy median on the Alhambra side of the street — across a jurisdictional line — raising the question of why the same kind of encampment hasn’t taken hold there.
Some members pointed to nearby community resources — a free clothing donation spot and a community refrigerator across the street — as, in their view, part of what keeps people staying in the area. Angela attributed the persistence of the encampment to drug use. Others in the thread, including Ricky, questioned whether any real solution exists, pointing to what he described as a missed opportunity years earlier when the city rejected a private developer’s proposal to build a large high-rise near Skid Row to house homeless residents. Fernando shared that a close friend had recently become homeless after living with him for nine months, and was now staying at a local park. A few comments veered into broader political frustration, including calls to vote differently in local elections, reflecting how a single encampment has become a lightning rod for wider debates about the city’s homelessness policy.
The Larger Dispute
As of late April, the code enforcement case against SoLa Impact remained under investigation, with the city issuing a third order for the developer to comply. Several dozen residents gathered outside the Eagle Rock office of Councilwoman Ysabel Jurado, whose district includes El Sereno, to demand action, and some Facebook group members have echoed that call directly in posts tagging the councilwoman’s page. Valerie, addressing Jurado directly in a comment, urged her office to “clean this up.”
Ms. Jurado has not disputed the substance of the complaints. She has said that the city’s effort to speed up housing production has, in cases like this one, led to weaker enforcement of permitting rules, and that the burden of that tradeoff has fallen on lower-income communities like El Sereno. Her office said it had already forced SoLa Impact to halt an earlier round of unauthorized demolition, and that after two and a half years of pressure, the developer agreed only this spring to pay for a cleanup of the site, after the city attorney’s office intervened.
For now, the lot remains much as residents describe it: a visible presence at the edge of the neighborhood, situated across from a sign meant to welcome people in.
