Meridians on verge of demolition

Meridians residents fight bedbugs while San Bernardino agency works on housing plans
By Jason Pesick on October 28, 2008 6:40 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | ShareThis
At a time when economic development officials are trying to take a more assertive approach to housing issues in the city, tenants at a cluster of Westside apartments are anxiously waiting to find out what's in store for their future.

The Meridians - a set of 18 distressed four-plexes near the San Bernardino-Rialto boundary - are but a piece of the San Bernardino Economic Development Agency's housing-related work. EDA officials want to have the apartments razed to make room for new development, and those who live there have yet to learn when they will have to leave.

California law requires the EDA compensate tenants displaced by redevelopment work.

Meridians' residents who were willing to be interviewed today say they're not averse to leaving apartments that they say have become infested with blood-sucking insects.

"Who wants to live around this?" resident Carl Williams said while standing in an alley littered with garbage. "Take a look at this trash. This filth."

Williams and others said they want to move out. But they're waiting for EDA officials to do the necessary work to purchase their apartments and provide relocation dollars.

"I'd consider it a great thing," Williams said.

Many people at the Meridians -- colloquially named for the apartments' location on Meridian Avenue north of Foothill Boulevard -- didn't want to speak on the record today. However, several said they are dealing with substandard maintenance and an infestation of fierce bedbugs.

"If you smash them, you would not believe how much blood is in them," resident Tasha Bailey said. She and others at the complex pointed out irritations on their bodies that they said were inflicted by ravenous bugs.

Landlord Gilbert Badillo Sr. of Anaheim said by telephone today that he's aware of the bedbug problem and has hired an exterminator to spray for the insects. He said the infestation hasn't stopped because some tenants have not opened their doors to the exterminator, thus allowing bedbugs to survive in some units if killed in others.

Badillo said he owns one of the four-plexes himself and two others with a partner. He said he has difficulty keeping up with repairs because unruly tenants break windows and deface walls while others fail to pay their rent, which ranges from $750 to $800.

He's open to selling his properties - many other four-plexes in the Meridians have been foreclosed and are boarded up - but said he has yet to hear from the EDA.

"I'd like to see the city purchase the property and develop it into something that's a little better for the community," he said.

On Oct. 6, the City Council, acting as the Community Development Commission, approved a contract with Santa Ana-based Community Property Specialists Inc. to work on the acquisition of the Meridians and follow-up work to help tenants move and to demolish the stucco-covered four-plexes.

EDA officials expect the Meridians to be torn down within the 2009-10 budget year.

Redeveloping the apartments is expected to cost more than $6.4 million.

The EDA's interest in San Bernardino housing issues extends beyond the Meridians. On Oct. 20, the council adopted an "Integrated Housing Strategy" intended to address broader issues.

The strategy includes plans for annual notices of funding for housing projects. The EDA has up to $6 million allocated for the current budget year to finance construction of 40 to 80 senior housing units, as well as the purchase and rehabilitation of more than 40 rental units.

Other aspects of the strategy include assistance to homeowners and homebuyers, using the judicial process to place properties that have persistent code violations into receivership and using $8.4 million in federal dollars to buy and rehab foreclosed homes.

http://link.brightcove.com/services/link/bcpid1649964976/bctid1885535175

Its weird when I drive through this area now. Seeing everything changing..They built new homes in just about every little field that was left on Rialto ave

This is the "asnwer" to every problem in the city. Prey on the poor black and latino community and make profit off of the nieghborhoods through complete "revitalization". I believe they should clean up the Meridians, but leave them in their place.

Its a trip how that wall off Rialto ave just south of the meridians thats always full of graffiti got all those houses built in front of it. Like an attempt to make the area look nice..But I noticed everyone still hitting up that wall lol

Governments don't care about the poor and this is not how you solve problems specially when all these peoples are loosing there homes and don't got no where to go the economy is fucked up and they want to do this

Whatever they decide to do will only bring more economic despair as their is no market for high end housing in San Bernardino city limits.

^ Yeah, real shit.