‘Living in misery': Doctor pleads with authorities to address rooftop homeless encampment

Los Angeles Times

5 days ago

For the last three years, an unknown number of homeless people have been living on the rooftop of Tahani Soliman's medical practice in the city of Huntington Park, the doctor says.
The group, she says, has caused fires, damaged the roof and taken apart air-conditioning units for parts, all of which she's had to repair or replace, costing her nearly $100,000.
In an effort to ward them off, Soliman said she installed an iron fence with razor wire and a metal cage around an outdoor faucet. She said she'd complained to the city and the police about the vandalism but that they'd failed to address the problems.
'The police told me to install cameras, and I told them I have cameras,' she said. 'They told me I should put them on the roof. The roof, can you believe that?'
The city of Huntington Park told The Times it planned to reach out to Soliman to address her concerns.
The Huntington Park Police Department said it is committed to addressing public safety concerns and that it was working with stakeholders to investigate not only the problems at Soliman's building but also the broader issues in the neighborhood.
'Alongside our crime prevention efforts, the department continues to address the challenges associated with the unhoused population through a compassionate and balanced approach,' the statement read. 'Our officers regularly engage with unhoused individuals, connecting them to mental health services, social support programs, and shelter options in collaboration with city and county partners.'
Soliman's medical practice — La Doctora — Spanish for 'the doctor,' is one of three businesses nestled within a commercial property that's adjacent to a two-story parking structure. She said the vandals use the top floor of the structure to access the rooftop of her building, which she said she manages.
She said that prompted her to install the iron fence with razor wire but that it was eventually damaged by the trespassers.
On a recent, warm Thursday afternoon, a portion of the razor wire hung from the black metal fence down to a trash container sitting next to the caged water faucet. A purple sweater dangled on a branch of a jacaranda tree.
Two doors down from Soliman's medical practice is American Bio-Clinical Laboratories. Past the double glass doors, Maria Pascual, an employee, sat in front of a computer, her forehead clammy from the warmth.
'We haven't been able to turn the air conditioning on,' Pascual said.
She said she noticed the AC unit was not working when she tried to turn it on during the recent heat wave. She later learned from Soliman that the AC units had been damaged again.
'It's happened before,' she said.
Soliman said the homeless people had scrapped the units again for parts. The Huntington Park police said the thefts occurred on May 7 and that officers were actively investigating.
'We're living in misery,' Soliman said.
The physician said she expected to have to spend thousands of dollars again to replace the air-conditioning units and make necessary repairs to the rooftop.
Fed up, she shared with The Times a handwritten itemized invoice of the projected cost of installing the AC units: $20,800 for four AC units, $2,300 to deliver and use a crane to hoist the units and $6,000 for labor costs.
The invoice also showed the cost of installing a new iron fence around the units, bringing the total cost to $35,900.
She said the costs and lack of response from the city and police had led her to consider two things: retirement and the possible closure of her business.
'I can't take it anymore,' she said. 'No one is protecting me.'
Soliman said the source of the problem is a two-story parking structure that sits next to her building — and has also been the source of many other problems.
Broken glass, human excrement and charred areas were visible on the floors and stairways of the parking lot on Thursday afternoon. On the top floor, motorcycle tire marks from burnouts were visible, and metal bars of the iron fence installed by Soliman had been bent apart.
Across from the parking structure is a residential building. Watering her plants on her balcony, Maria Luiza, 78, said she had seen drug use not just by the homeless people but also young people from the area at the parking structure. She said motorcycles have done burnouts and there had been several fires.
She said the problems became so bad that the owner of her building had to install gates on the building carports to keep people away.
'They need to permanently close that structure down,' she said. 'It's nothing but problems.'
Across the street, walking to their apartments, Marta Becerra, 50, and Margarita Mota, 60, said people from the parking structure had wandered into their apartment complex, stealing bicycles and other items from people's porches. There had also been car break-ins.
'We've made a lot of complaints,' Becerra said, 'but nothing happens.'
'The police don't do anything about it,' Mota said, chiming in. 'There's not a lot of patrolling going on around here.'