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Altadena apartment complex say they are still fighting a “notorious” landlord to repair a fire-damaged building that remains unlivable and contaminated with toxic ash and soot.
Longtime tenants of 403 Figueroa Dr., who describe the complex as a close-knit village, say their property manager, Regency Management Inc., has ignored years of repair requests and pleas to clean up the property after the fire razed most of the block. Although Regency Management replaced the windows, residents said they were forced to camp out in their apartments without electricity or hot water for months in the fire’s aftermath because most could not afford to move as the fire strained the area’s housing market.
“Homes in this community are being rebuilt up to code, but our building remains frozen in time since Jan. 7,” said Brenda Lopez-Ardon, a community organizer and tenant, at a press conference last month. Brenda Lopez-Ardon speaks at a community rally and press conference with members of tenants’ union Comité 403 in front of their building. March 26, 2026.
She spoke in front of the building where she has lived her whole life and is raising her young daughter. Later that evening, as kids raced on scooters through the courtyard of the rundown two-story building, Lopez-Ardon and several tenants ushered state Sen. Sasha Pérez through the property, pointing out damages from the fire and water, along with buckling floors and discolored tap water.
In one apartment, mold bloomed through paint on a wall in a children’s bedroom, and also grew on a mattress and plush toys. Residents complained of rat and cockroach infestations. Brenda Lopez-Ardon shows state Sen. Sasha Pérez water damage from a leak inside an apartment at her Figueroa Drive building during a tour of the property.
March 26, 2026.
“We are not animals, to be living this way,” said Yoselin Ayala, one of the tenants sharing her experience with Pérez. “Things like broken bricks and falling walls and, you know, other fire damage, melted parts of the building, those are things that should have been taken care of a long time ago,” she told The LA Local. Regency Management and its owner Swaranjit “Mike” Nijjar, have not responded to requests for comment.
Brenda Lopez-Ardon speaks at a community rally and press conference with members of tenants’ union Comité 403 in front of their building. March 26, 2026. The Eaton Fire blew out nearly all of the building’s windows, destroyed large sections of the property’s perimeter wall, burned down carport shade structures in the parking lot and left the building without power or hot water for months.
Lopez-Ardon said many of the apartments were cleaned by local volunteers, and when Regency Management finally sent cleaners, they were maintenance workers, not a professional remediation company with special equipment and training on dealing with disasters. Children take part in a community rally in front of their apartment building in Altadena. Parents say they’re concerned about toxins left behind from the Eaton Fire affecting kids’ health. March 26, 2026.
In response, the residents formed a tenants’ union to demand their rights as renters and move “from the defense to the offense,” Lopez-Ardon said. Their efforts have met with limited success, and the group is now exploring options including forming a co-op to buy the property from Nijjar, a man California’s attorney general, his companies and several of his relatives last summer. The suit alleges “inhumane living conditions” across properties owned by the real estate developer, his sister and children.
It also alleges the company had several breaches of lease agreements and violations of the state’s Tenant Protection Act.
“The Nijjar Companies rent out unsafe and uninhabitable units, disregard tenants’ requests for repairs, and fail to eradicate pests, inflicting harm and anguish on tenants,” according to the complaint filed in June in Los Angeles Superior Court. The family’s empire encompasses 22,000 rental units throughout California, owned through a byzantine collection of more than 150 limited partnerships and corporations and administered by 11 management companies, including Regency Management.
Brenda Lopez-Ardon stands with neighbors at a community rally and press conference with members of tenants’ union Comité 403 in front of their building. March 26, 2026. For the tenants on Figueroa Drive, the fire damage was simply the last straw on top of longstanding neglect and repair requests they say Regency has ignored for years. Lopez-Ardon, 26, said the pedestrian entrance gate has been broken off and wide open for at least 10 years.
Lax security has also made some residents fearful of another major threat in the area: ICE. Blanca, who only gave her first name because of privacy concerns, has lived in the building for more than 20 years. She said that immigration enforcement agents have entered the building twice in the last year looking for a specific person. They left empty-handed both times.
Spots of mold on a plush toy in a children’s bedroom where it also grows on a wall and a mattress in an apartment at 403 Figueroa Dr. in Altadena, owned by the Nijjar family. March 26, 2026. Recent polling suggests it’s unlikely that two Republicans would lock Democrats out of the November gubernatorial election. But some liberal activists are still panicking about the possibility of a MAGA governor.
Their solution could delay California’s already slow ballot-counting.. That fear has morphed into wariness, leading some party activists and influencers to encourage people to hold off on voting early, watch the polls, then vote for the candidate with the most support just before Election Day. The push to vote late flies in the face of recent pleas from election officials and Gov.
Gavin Newsom for voters to get their ballots in early in the hopes of speeding up California’s notoriously slow vote-counting process. Attorney General Rob Bonta, a fellow Democrat, told reporters last week that the social mediaSome California Democrats have a plan to avoid disaster in the governor's race: Wait until the last minute to vote.
With no one candidate emerging as a clear favorite and an open primary where the top two advance regardless of party affiliation, panic has set in for some who plan to vote Democratic. That fear has morphed into wariness, leading some party activists and influencers to encourage people to hold off on voting early, watch the polls, then vote for the candidate with the most support just before Election Day.even though the Democrat is not likely to advance to November given her current polling.
But this year the stakes are higher, she said, and as a lesbian woman, any of the Democrats would be more aligned with her core values than a Republican. She fears supporters of President Donald Trump who have soured on him could back Republican Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco, giving him enough of a boost to match the power of, the former Fox News host who is leading all other candidates in the polls.
That would send both Republicans to the runoff.
“The thing that flipped for me was going from, ‘I don't really know what to do,’ to, ‘I strategically am not making a decision,” Evans-Reber said. , the former Health and Human Services secretary who surged from single digits to the top of the polls after Swalwell’s downfall. As his popularity soared, so has the scrutiny of his record at HHS and as California’s, a former businessman turned billionaire activist, and Porter.
San Jose Mayor Matt Mahan has also positioned himself as a tech-friendly moderate and ally of Silicon Valley. Evans-Reber and other impassioned Democrats have been urging others to follow the wait-and-see strategy by sharing videos and posts on social media.the strategy to Heather Cox Richardson, a political historian and popular Democratic influencer who writes the Substack newsletter Letters from an American. That erroneous post was the first one Evans-Reber saw and forwarded.
She later had to follow up with a disclaimer that Cox Richardson was not the author.
“It's just a bad message,” he said. “I think they should always have a message of, ‘As soon as you get your ballot, fill it out, turn it in, mail it in and get it done. ” Mitchell said although activists might talk about and push for a strategic voting plan, trying to organize a movement like that at scale would likely not produce significant results.
“I think people vote for whoever they were going to vote for anyway,” said Mitchell, whose company tracks how many ballots are turned in each day statewide. The push to vote late flies in the face of recent pleas from election officials and Gov. Gavin Newsom for voters to get their ballots in early in the hopes of speeding up California’s notoriously slow vote-counting process.
Attorney General Rob Bonta, a fellow Democrat, told reporters last week that the social mediaTurning in a mail-in ballot on Election Day, as some activists propose, is the worst possible scenario for election administration officials. It creates what Kim Alexander, president of the California Voter Foundation, calls the “pig in the python effect.
” County election offices are inundated with in-person ballots on Election Day, as well as mail-in ballots that require a meticulous process of signature matching, envelope opening and extracting the ballot before it can be counted. Mark DiCamillo, who runs polling for the Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies, said pollsters are doing their best to produce accurate results, but in an election with so many variables, even the best surveys could be off-base.
The past trend of low voter turnout in gubernatorial primaries, plus a potentially confusing array of 61 candidates for governor alone, make it difficult to determine who the likely voters will be and account for that in their surveys.
“This election's got all the elements you have to deal with,” DiCamillo said. “It’s a challenge for the polling profession. ” Despite the concerns about a slow vote count and imprecise polling, Evans-Reber says she still plans to stick to her last-minute voting strategy. She doesn’t trust that mailing her ballot will reach the county elections office in time.
She plans to bring her completed ballot to the office or one of the county’s vote centers and hand it directly to an election official.
“I am going to cast the ballot at the very last possible moment,” Evans-Reber said. “I’m going to wait until polling day. ”A newly formed committee will ensure the health department implements its civil law enforcement policy, which instructs public health workers on how to protect patients brought in by law enforcement, including immigration agents.
The committee — made up of hospital officials, county counsel and the office of immigration affairs — will require training for health workers on the civil law enforcement interaction policy. The group will also collect feedback from staff on how to improve the policy and report back to the board in a month. : The L.A.
County policy, which went into effect in March, reiterates that all patients have the right to communicate with loved ones and connect to legal support. Health workers and advocates have shared concerns that not enough people know about the policy. Supervisor Hilda Solis, who introduced Tuesday’s motion, said since ICE raids ramped up last summer, public health workers have had more interactions with federal agents.
And in trying to protect patients, Solis added, some workers risk being accused of obstructing justice.
“Despite the county’s sensitive location policy … immigration enforcement officials have pushed boundaries or blatantly ignored laws,” Solis said. “This has put many of our county employees in a difficult position of trying to enforce the law and protect patients’ rights. ”If you're enjoying this article, you'll love our daily newsletter, The LA Report. Each weekday, catch up on the 5 most pressing stories to start your morning in 3 minutes or less.
Consumer prices in April were up 3.8% from a year ago, according to a report Tuesday from the Labor Department. That was the biggest annual increase since May 2023. Gasoline prices have jumped sharply since the war began, snarling tanker traffic in the Strait of Hormuz, a vital corridor for energy shipments. The average price of regular gas is $4.50 a gallon, according to AAA.
The U.S. war with Iran has pushed inflation to its highest level in almost three years. Consumer prices in April were up 3.8% from a year ago, according to a report Tuesday from the Labor Department. That was the biggest annual increase since May 2023. Gasoline prices have jumped sharply since the war began, snarling tanker traffic in the Strait of Hormuz, a vital corridor for energy shipments.
The average price of regular gas is $4.50 a gallon, according to AAA. That's up 38 cents from a month ago. The jump in energy prices accounted for 40% of the monthly increase in the consumer price index in April. When energy costs jump sharply, it can have spillover effects.
Air fares, for example, jumped 2.8% last month and are more than 20% higher than they were a year ago, as airlines struggle with a spike in jet fuel prices. The cost of diesel fuel has risen by $1.88 a gallon since the war began. If that lasts, it could put upward pressure on the price of everything that's delivered by truck or train.
Housing prices also contributed to higher inflation in April Housing costs were also a driver of inflation, jumping 0.6% between March and April, but some of that is a statistical fluke resulting from the six-week government shutdown last fall. Government number-crunchers were temporarily idled in October, so were unable to collect housing prices that month. That's had the effect of artificially lowering the measure of housing inflation. Tuesday's report provides a kind of catch-up.
Advocates had pushed L.A. ’s World Cup host committee, an arm of the Los Angeles Sports & Entertainment Commission, to produce its human rights plan. But now that it's out, they're not satisfied. It includes a list of online resources including where to file complaints with various local and state level agencies and a summary of local, state and federal laws protecting human and civil rights.
The committee is also touting a partnership with L.A. County in which people can"Los Angeles is weeks away from hosting one of the largest sporting events in the world, and yet what has been posted is not a plan,” Stephanie Richard, director of the Sunita Jain Anti‑ at Loyola Law School, said in a statement.
“It is a list of laws and hotline numbers. "The Los Angeles World Cup host committee has quietly posted its guidance on human rights after months of speculation over where the plan was and when it would be published. Advocates had pushed the committee, an arm of the Los Angeles Sports & Entertainment Commission, to produce its plan. But now that it's out, they're not satisfied with what they're seeing..
It includes a list of online resources including where to file complaints with various local and state level agencies and a summary of local, state and federal laws protecting human and civil rights. The committee is also touting a partnership with L.A.
County in which people can "Los Angeles is weeks away from hosting one of the largest sporting events in the world, and yet what has been posted is not a plan,” Stephanie Richard, director of the Sunita Jain Anti‑Trafficking Initiative at Loyola Law School, said in a statement.
“It is a list of laws and hotline numbers. " The human rights document also skirts fears around ICE and its potential presence at the tournament and surrounding celebrations. Todd Lyons, the agency's head, said earlier this year that ICE's investigatory branchBut ICE and immigration enforcement aren't mentioned on the host committee's web page on human rights or in its outline of its approach to human rights.
"Immigration status" only gets a mention in the list of existing anti-discrimination laws. "It certainly could have been much stronger," Angelica Salas, executive director of the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights in Los Angeles, said of the plan. She added that her organization participated in a roundtable on the plan, and she was disappointed ICE and recent immigration sweeps weren't mentioned in the resulting document.
"In order for all of this to happen, immigrant workers are part of it," she said of the World Cup. "Your hotel workers, your service workers, stadium workers, drivers. " There have been some recent signs that other host committees aren't concerned that ICE will disrupt the tournament. LAist reached out to spokespeople for the host committee for comment via email, phone and text, but did not hear back in time for publication.
FIFA's press team also did not respond to an email from LAist. According to the host committee's website, the human rights plan is the result of coordination with the city and county of Los Angeles, the city of Inglewood, and 14 roundtable discussions held in the fall of 2025.
"As a non-profit organization, the Host Committee’s role is primarily and necessarily focused on aligning and collaborating with governmental and non-governmental organizations," the document sums up the committee's approach. The plan also promises more actions, including"Know Your Rights" training for L.A. residents and visitors and"Know Your Responsibilities" training for businesses and vendors. The committee also says it will develop a"rapid response" strategy to respond to potential problems at the tournament. Available details on those plans were scant.
And with the tournament just 30 days away, labor unions and community groups are continuing to voice concerns about potential ICE presence at SoFi Stadium and other potential consequences of the tournament coming to town.
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