Why Won't The County Do Right By Rancho Los Amigos?

Rancho Los Amigos, originally the County Poor Farm, is one of Los Angeles County’s biggest, and most shocking, long-empty spaces.

Beginning in 1888, the County Poor Farm provided medical care, work, and housing for the poor. The northern campus is still home to a well-known medical rehabilitation center. This post, however, concerns the long-abandoned southern campus.

Rancho Los Amigos’ 74-acre southern campus was vacated in 1988, with over 100 buildings boarded up and left empty for decades. Time, weather, neglect, and arson took their toll, and most of what remained of the campus was demolished in 2024. What an appalling waste.

35 acres of the near-empty southern campus was slated for new construction - specifically, as an affordable supportive housing project called Veterans Commons. Which, let me be clear, is a good thing. It’s a MUCH better use of the space than letting it continue to sit empty - and I hope to see the rest of the parcel put to similar use.

Here’s the problem: There is evidence that the onsite cemetery’s interments are still there. Specifically, bodies are still buried in the area slated for redevelopment.

My friends at Esotouric have been trying to work with County Supervisor Janice Hahn and Deputy Ivan Sulic to ensure that any human remains on the site are handled appropriately. This has proven unreasonably difficult; both have been largely unresponsive.

Please, please, please read the entire horrifying story here.

And before someone posts a flippant comment disrespecting the dead, let me just mention that health and safety precautions should be taken when handling human remains. To the best of my knowledge, NO measures have been taken.

I don’t know much about the legality of removing remains from cemeteries (or about the proper handling of human remains), but this section of the California Health and Safety Code is likely to be relevant.

Los Angeles has a history of relocating old cemeteries (Old Calvary and the city cemetery - now a parking lot - come to mind). San Francisco evicted nearly all of its cemeteries for space, sending the city’s dead to Colma. Heck, one of my ancestral hometowns - Paris - famously removed its overflowing ancient cemeteries beginning in 1785, relocating the bones to what we now call the catacombs.

While I take no issue with relocating the dead when necessary, it MUST be done properly. Rancho Los Amigos’ cemetery was never even decommissioned.

So why hasn’t the county stepped up with a plan for handling the cemetery? Why won’t the Supervisor’s office return calls? Why is Deputy Sulic ignoring concerned citizens?

Why? Just…why?

11269 Garfield Avenue, Downey.