Move thousands of homeless people into landmark Los Angeles Sears building? Some say no way
Bill Taormina had 17 minutes to convince the crowd in the auditorium of Boyle Heights Resurrection School to back his plan to turn their shuttered neighborhood Sears into a giant homeless services hub.
The "Los Angeles Life Rebuilding Center" that Taormina wants to build would house up to 10,000 homeless people and provide medical and mental health services, job training, immigration help and drug abuse diversion programs.
The project would be dedicated to "saving lives," Taormina told his audience, vowing not to build "anything like a prison" on the landmark lot.
As an activist, philanthropist and wealthy Anaheim businessman, Taormina has helped finance several homeless housing projects in Orange County over the years.
But in Boyle Heights, he was greeted with a sea of homemade poster board signs saying "No Sears Detention Center" and "Respect Our Community." Dozens of speakers criticized his plan at the meeting June 27, calling it "a crime against humanity," "irresponsible" and "a threat to the area's children." Shouts of "Take that to Beverly Hills!" were volleyed about.
The project felt to many attendees like a pie-in-the-sky approach to a problem that keeps growing exponentially. But the opposition on display at the meeting was about more than practicality.
It reflected the frustration of Boyle Heights residents who feel their community has been persistently shortchanged. Now, an outsider was telling them that the landmark Sears building, once the pride of the community, would house not hundreds, but thousands, of homeless people.
"It was like a whole bunch of things were said, but nothing made sense," lifelong Boyle Heights resident Jasmine Flores, 21, said after the meeting. "It seemed very much an unrealistic dream that we were being sold, while real solutions, things that could help people from Boyle Heights, weren't considered."
Some felt aggrieved that their community, already reeling from COVID-19 deaths and environmental pollution, was now supposed to "fix" Los Angeles' massive homelessness crisis.
Others lamented that basic services they've demanded from city and county officials — street cleaning, affordable housing and better security — continued to be neglected, while homelessness has taken center stage.
Several speakers lambasted local elected representatives for skipping the meeting.
Flores was one of more than 30 people who spoke against the project. She said her family nearly wound up homeless on a few occasions during her childhood, and many in Boyle Heights are still barely making ends meet.
Like several other speakers, she considered it unfair that so many resources would be devoted to a transient community, rather than to residents who have been struggling for years.
"Many people don't have health insurance or dental insurance — some can't afford dialysis," Flores said. "To wrap my head around hundreds of millions of dollars going to bring people from outside this community and help them settle, while ignoring us — it was too much."
Meeting organizer Sofia Quiñones, leader of the East Los Angeles Boyle Heights Coalition, said the community's lack of information regarding the project helped kindle residents' outrage.
"We found out about this plan from an L.A. Times article," she said. "It was unbelievable. I never heard anything from any politicians, any planners. How can you put this giant project in our backyard and not consult the community?"
For Quiñones and others, the lack of information about the plan harkened to when residents were left in the dark regarding the dangers of Exide Technologies lead battery recycling plant, which operated in neighboring Vernon.
In 2015, Exide acknowledged decades of illegal actions, including dumping contaminants, such as arsenic and lead, into the local air, soil and water. The facility put roughly 110,000 people in surrounding communities, including Boyle Heights, at increased risk for cancer.
Cleanup efforts to remove lead from the soil surrounding homes, businesses, schools and daycare centers won't be completed until March 2025.
After listening for hours to their concerns, Taormina asked the 200 people in attendance what they would accept.
Many said they wanted grocery and department stores, and others asked for parks and play spaces for children. Some wanted a training center and trade school that would help prepare residents for well-paying jobs.
"What's ironic is a lot of what the community told me they wanted, after they vented and shared their ideas, was what this plan calls for," Taormina said the day after the meeting.
According to project plans, the Los Angeles Life Rebuilding Center would include a retail and convenience store open to the public. Current big-rig parking lots on the Sears campus would be converted into grassy areas, and the center would offer property storage and job training in areas such as food service, security and cosmetology. It would house a Los Angeles Police Department substation and a staging area for the L.A. Fire Department. And all jobs at the facility would be open first to Boyle Heights residents.
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