CHP Officers Guarding Vacant Caltrans-Owned Homes in Pasadena

A California Highway Patrol spokesperson told Pasadena Now on Tuesday that CHP officers are currently occupying Caltrans properties seized by the state to make way for a failed freeway extension.

According to people living nearby and some living in other Caltrans homes, CHP cruisers have been parked in the driveways of the homes being occupied by officers around the clock during the holidays.

“My understanding is that it’s an ongoing assignment for some officers because we’ve had problems with people going to the empty houses and staying there,” said CHP Public Affairs Officer Vince Ramirez. “That’s state property, and they’re not supposed to be there. So they’re there to discourage them from doing so.”

The homes in Pasadena and South Pasadena were seized 50 years ago as part of a doomed effort to build an extension from the end of the 710 Freeway that would connect with the 210 Freeway.

Since the effort officially failed five years ago when Caltrans scrapped plans to build an underground tunnel, the state agency has been slow in selling the properties and has placed clauses in agreements that would allow the state agency to maintain ownership of the easement under the homes. 

Caltrans has come under constant fire for their management of the homes. 

Many of the houses have fallen into disrepair due to a lack of proper maintenance and have been deemed uninhabitable.

Pasadena’s Code Compliance Division conducted exterior inspections of the city’s Caltrans homes in Pasadena in 2019 and afterward forwarded their findings to Caltrans.

Ramirez said he did not know when the officers were at the homes.

“We’ve had officers sometimes during the day and sometimes at night, and again, that’s to discourage people from taking over the property and staying there indefinitely,” he said. 

CHP officers removed squatters from the abandoned homes for two days, including Thanksgiving, in El Sereno, The incident prompted dozens of protesters to surround officers as they took illegal tenants into custody.

According to the CHP, 62 people were arrested over the two-day period, with 21 cited for trespassing and burglary, and 41 were cited and released for participating in an unlawful assembly.

Video posted online showed at least one CHP team ramming open the door to one of the homes.

A video posted on YouTube by the group Reclaim and Rebuild Our Community includes a message to Gov. Gavin Newsom, telling him that families that had been living in their cars had moved into several of the homes, where they were “sheltering in place.”

The people occupying the homes said they “reclaimed” the houses as the state wasn’t using them.

The homeless population in Southern California has been skyrocketing for several years.

“At the height of a deadly pandemic that’s raging out of control, on top of an affordable housing crisis in Los Angeles, why is Caltrans (a state agency) enlisting the CHP to guard their empty houses 24/7, instead of renting them out to people who need housing? What a waste of CHP’s time and taxpayers’ money,” said a Caltrans tenant who asked to remain anonymous out of fear of retaliation from Caltrans.

After the event, United Caltrans Tenants, a group consisting of Pasadena, South Pasadena and El Sereno residents, demanded the state put all Caltrans properties in El Sereno under community control.

That group also demanded Caltrans give elders the homes they’ve been living in, some for more than 40 years; agree on a viable and affordable pathway to homeownership for all Caltrans tenants; transfer all remaining empty and “reclaimed” properties to the El Sereno Community Land Trust; guarantee no evictions and or displacements; and agree to a timeline to meet the demands.

“Originally purchased for the 710 Freeway extension that will never be built, these homes should be declared surplus and sold immediately, as required by law,” the group states.