The War on University Park

It’s not a secret that student housing has been displacing residents of the USC area for years. Heck, the LA Times sounded the alarm last March. (Article is unfortunately paywalled, but worth a read if you know a subscriber.)

A University Park resident reached out to me recently with some shocking information. This is slightly condensed from a series of emails:

Many landlords hold off on renting apartments and would rather have them be vacant from late fall until summer when returning USC students start their apartment search. However, the following addresses have units that have been vacant for at least TWO YEARS, with the units at 23rd and Toberman being RSO. The recent trend has been that many USC students are opting to live off-campus in areas that have more and better housing amenities, such as Koreatown, Mid-City, and Westwood.

Here are the addresses:

959 / 963 / 965 W. 23rd St.

2212 / 2212 1/2 / 2214 / 2214 1/2 Toberman St.

2216 / 2216 1/2 / 2218 / 2218 1/2 Toberman St.

2222 / 2224 Toberman St.

(these four buildings are owned by the same landlord and have been vacant for over two years. They are all RSO…)

1315 / 1317 W. 23rd St.

(I'm unsure how long these units have been vacant, but…they had already been vacant since at least Sept. 2024. In January 2025 I asked my landlord about these vacant units because I had a co-worker whose family members were affected by the Eaton Fire and were looking for housing. He told me the homeowner doesn't rent to Black people, point blank).

First of all - empty for TWO YEARS? WTF?

Second - a landlord in a historically Black neighborhood refusing to rent to Black applicants? WTF?!

Sadly, I’m not surprised that USC-area landlords would hold out on renting RSO homes to locals (who are more likely to stay put for years, or even decades) in favor of renting to USC students, who are much more likely to be temporary residents - and are much more likely to have a deep-pocketed family that won’t balk at bloated housing costs. (Not every USC student is rich, but it’s nicknamed “University of Spoiled Children” for a reason.)

Rent an RSO unit to a student and you can raise the rent significantly once they graduate and leave (and if they move out over the summer, you can raise the rent annually). Rent that same RSO unit to a family who actually lives in the neighborhood and you aren’t supposed to raise it to market rate until whenever they move out (not that the law ever stops a property owner who cares more about money than legality).

I understand it, but that doesn’t make it right.

Anyway, getting back to the neighbor who contacted me:

I've been making noise about these with Eunisses's office to no avail. As a matter of fact, there's an empty lot on Scarff St., south of 23rd, that we inquired her office about and the response was they basically didn't want to go against the state. Why? The building that used to be there was torn down (illegally) and the developers have been proposing ever since a FOUR STORY DORM! Of course the HPOZ has been fighting it but more for the aesthetics and lack of parking. That address is 2381 Scarff St.

Edited to add: I’m told that the correct address is 2323 Scarff Street (to be clear, 2381 is indeed a vacant lot). Find the City Planning Commission hearing (12/8/22) here. Find an audio link here. And here’s a later submission from appellants.

That's something that also happens a lot here in University Park: developers purchasing these old, HPOZ-protected, RSO single-family homes or apartment buildings and then demolishing them illegally. That happened to one on 24th and Hoover. Another thing: rendering empty/abandoned homes or apartment buildings as "non-contributing," making it easier for them to be demolished and redeveloped into student housing. That happened to a house on 21st and Toberman. All these concerns have been brought forth to the councilmember's offices (CD8 and CD1), but they're always ignored, or as we come to find out later on, was approved by Zoning and Planning after the councilmember's office pushed for their approval.

Honestly, is anyone surprised that Eunisses’ office hasn’t done anything?

Her office illegally failed to comply with a CPRA request.

And do not get me started on a preventable fire in her district that left 19 Section 8 households with nowhere to go.

What’s worse that Eunisses’ apparent apathy (prove me wrong, Eunisses!) is the apparent hypocrisy of Marqueece Harris-Dawson.

In the LA Times article linked at the top of this post, Harris-Dawson is quoted thusly:

“I’m most concerned that new housing is being created for temporary residents at the expense of housing for permanent residents, multi-generational residents, people who are committed to the neighborhood,” said Councilman Marqueece Harris-Dawson, who is pushing for tighter planning restrictions he hopes will slow the pace.

If that were true, he’d help his constituents when they ask for help instead of ignoring their concerns. It seems to me that Harris-Dawson is likely most concerned with pandering to developers while paying lip service to residents threatened with, or facing, displacement. (Prove me wrong by cracking down on this nonsense, Marqueece.)

Want to know more about historic, largely RSO housing being replaced with dorms? Nathan “Cranky Preservationist” Marsak has previously reported on it at RIP Los Angeles.

One last word from the neighbor:

One thing that the community was able to gain a few years back was getting them to take the student housing advertising banners down or face a fine (something like $500 and increasing fines for repeat violations), but they've been making a comeback since November/December 2024. CD8 was fully behind fining them but, per usual, ignoring the community since re-election. It really sucks that this community is divided into THREE council districts and NONE OF THEM do anything for the community. It's like they fight each other for a piece of that USC pie during redistricting and forget about the place (and people included of course) once they get their cut.

That is EXACTLY what it sounds like to me, too.

Oh, by the way, I looked up 2381 Scarff Street on Google Street View. The oldest Street View picture available is from August 2007, and at that point it was already a vacant lot. That means it’s been empty for at least 18 years.

959 / 963 / 965 West 23rd Street, University Park.

2212 / 2212 1/2 / 2214 / 2214 1/2 Toberman Street, University Park.

2216 / 2216 1/2 / 2218 / 2218 1/2 Toberman Street, University Park.

2222 / 2224 Toberman Street., University Park.

1315 / 1317 West 23rd Street, University Park.

2381 Scarff Street, University Park.

2323 Scarff Street, University Park.