More than a year ago, dozens of BlackSeries camping trailers began to appear on a vacant lot that partly serves as an overflow for a car dealership in the City of Industry.
There, the black and white trailers with price tags up to $50,000 sat collecting dust until, eventually, about a dozen homeless people took shelter in the empty trailers, according to Los Angeles County officials.
Now the makeshift homeless encampment on Azusa and Gale avenues is becoming a headache for neighboring businesses as well as the lot owner who has tried for more than a year to get the owner of the trailers to either pay for use of the lot or remove the trailers.
Heaps of trash and occasional fires have been reported on the lot.
Efren Rodriguez, who works for an adjacent Nissan dealership, told NBC 4 News that someone from the encampment tried to attack him recently.
“The other day I came at 5 o’clock to get a car and one person, they start to argue with me and I don’t say nothing. And they pick up a rock, and they throw it at me,” he said. “Every single trailer right there, there’s people inside. Even kids and babies.”
The property owner, Legacy Point, said in a statement that the campers were not authorized to be stored on the vacant lot and that the owner spent more than a year trying to get the owner of BlackSeries Campers Inc., which the company identified as Hongwei Qiu, to either pay for the storage or remove them.
“Although Mr. Qiu acknowledged our ownership and expressed a willingness to pay the appropriate license fee, BlackSeries has not made a single payment for its use of our property,” Legacy Point wrote in the statement.
The company said it filed a lawsuit in September, asking for damages and the removal of the campers. That ruling came down in January, when a Los Angeles County Superior Court awarded Legacy Point $95,610 and ordered the removal, according to city and company officials.
Qiu and a representative for BlackSeries could not immediately be reached for comment.
Los Angeles County Supervisor Hilda Solis, whose district includes the City of Industry, said she’s asked the Sheriff’s Department’s homeless service team and the Los Angeles Centers for Alcohol and Drug Abuse to conduct outreach at the site.
Joshua Nelson, city manager with the City of Industry, said the town was helping coordinate cleanup efforts with the owners of the property and the Sheriff’s Department.
Although efforts to clear the encampment are underway, the case exemplifies a challenge cities, counties and homeless service providers face when clearing encampments from private land.
Last year, Los Angeles County’s Homeless Initiative spent half a year tracking down owners of several lots in Palmdale, where more than 100 people had been living in makeshift shelters, some as tall as two stories high. The county required owners to give officials the right of entry onto their properties before they could organize a cleanup.
In the City of Industry, the property owner of the vacant lot began a process to clear it in September 2023 when it learned about the campers.
From October 2023 to September 2024, Legacy Point said in its statement, it made multiple attempts to resolve the matter amicably.
“These efforts included proposing a legitimate license agreement for the temporary storage of BlackSeries campers, sending formal cease-and-desist notices and issuing towing notices,” the statement read. “BlackSeries repeatedly ignored or rebutted these efforts, even disabling its vehicles by removing tires and wheels to prevent towing, all while continuing to illegally occupy our property.”
In September, Legacy Point said it filed its lawsuit against the company and owner. It now is having the Sheriff’s Department carry out the court’s order to remove the campers and people from its lot.
“While we would have greatly preferred a more expeditious resolution, we recognize that the deliberate pace of our legal system, though at times frustrating, is a fundamental aspect of ensuring due process of law,” the company statement read.
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