California owns dozens of vacant houses in Los Angeles County. It's paying millions to guard them from protesters.

In spring 2020, activists illegally seized more than a dozen publicly owned, vacant homes in Los Angeles, arguing that the state shouldn’t leave its own houses empty during a homelessness crisis.

Since then, a lot of taxpayer money has gone to preventing others from doing the same.

State officials have spent over $17 million in the last six years on private security firms and extra police patrols to protect hundreds of homes, including dozens that are empty, that were acquired decades ago for a failed freeway expansion through the San Gabriel Valley, according to records obtained by POLITICO from the California Department of Transportation. The hefty price tag brings additional scrutiny to a long-running housing and transportation saga, which has drawn international attention and come to symbolize the sluggish response by local and state officials to the tens of thousands of people living on the streets of Los Angeles.

Today, while Caltrans leaders tout the sale of several dozen vacant properties to local governments and housing organizations, most of the homes remain in limbo, and the agency says it’s running out of cash to make required repairs. Agency officials defended the security expenses as necessary to protect public safety and thwart further attempts to seize houses. Yet activist groups behind the 2020 occupations said that explanation underscores their original claim: The state is more willing to take measures to stop people from living in empty homes than to house them.

“What we were doing was common sense,” said Estuardo Mazariegos, Los Angeles co-director of the Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment, a statewide advocacy organization for low-income tenants that helped organize the protests. “What they responded with was more of the same.”

When transportation planners drew up California’s highway system in the 1930s and ‘40s, they envisioned the 710 Freeway would connect a 30-mile stretch between the port of Long Beach and the San Gabriel Valley. Most of the road was built, but sustained outcry and lawsuits from homeowner groups stalled construction of 4.5 miles at the northern end. Efforts to complete the freeway were officially abandoned in 2018.

In preparation for the road project, Caltrans acquired 460 properties in three affected communities, Pasadena, South Pasadena and the El Sereno neighborhood of Los Angeles. They ranged from small multi-family buildings and undeveloped lots to tidy bungalows and Craftsman mansions. The agency rented the homes, but over time let many fall into disrepair and left them vacant. Most notably, the 115-year-old, 2.5-story house in Pasadena where famed chef Julia Child was raised has been empty for decades.

The freeway’s demise coincided with soaring rents and an explosion of homelessness in California, while a cumbersome legal and regulatory process stalled plans to sell the homes.

State and local tenant activists targeted El Sereno, a working-class Latino community where many of the vacant homes are clustered, for their protest. The group broke into houses across a few blocks and opened them to homeless people and others living on the margins. The action, which overlapped with the initial stay-at-home orders during the COVID-19 pandemic, produced such a negative spotlight that Gov. Gavin Newsom intervened to ensure that the protesters would not be removed. Ultimately, negotiations between the group, “Reclaiming Our Homes,” and state and local officials led to many of the so-called “Reclaimers” signing agreements that allowed them to remain in the houses for two years.

Their success led to further attempts at seizures, notably a coordinated effort over Thanksgiving 2020 that resulted in California Highway Patrol officers, clad in riot gear, hauling out would-be occupiers and arresting more than 60 people.

Caltrans records show security spending rose from about $250,000 annually prior to the 2020 to nearly $900,000 in 2021 before soaring to more than $6 million in 2022. That year, the agency switched private security firms from Inter-Con Security to Good Guard and relied on $2.4 million in additional CHP patrols.

Yearly spending has dropped since, but the price tag in 2024 was about $3 million, 15 times higher than before 2020, records show.

Caltrans officials have maintained that the agency has needed to guard homes not only to defend against more attempts at squatting, but also because many of the vacant homes aren’t safe to live in due to plumbing, electrical and other habitability problems. They blamed escalating security costs on the continued threat of occupations.

“Caltrans remains committed to its responsibility to maintain public safety and to steward state assets appropriately,” spokesperson Eric Menjivar said.

Menjivar said the agency is reducing security patrols as vacant properties are sold but expects to continue paying for services until the entire portfolio is liquidated.

Val Marquez, an El Sereno homeowner for more than 50 years, said the height of the protests turned his neighborhood into a “war zone.” An increased police presence, he said, led residents to have a greater sense of security despite the looming uncertainty around them.

“Even though we were safe, there was still a dark feeling,” said Marquez, 75.

Still, Marquez believed it should not have cost as much as it has to guard the houses.

“It’s ridiculous,” he said.

The ballooning security budget comes as Caltrans is struggling to drum up money needed to complete sales of the homes. A complicated and oft-amended state law requires the agency to offer them to existing tenants. For homes occupied by low-income residents, Caltrans has to sell them far below El Sereno’s median home value of $762,000, including some for less than $35,000, and pay to fix them up beforehand.

About 100 homes with low-income tenants are in escrow, but only three sales are close to done as contracting procedures have delayed repair work for nearly two years, said Carolyn Dabney, the Caltrans program manager overseeing the sales. Making matters worse, Dabney told the California Transportation Commission at a briefing this month, the average repair cost is exceeding $100,000.

“The rehab account is at risk of being depleted prior to all properties being repaired,” Dabney told the commission.

The agency has prioritized the sale of vacant properties, she said, with local governments and affordable housing non-profits purchasing nearly 60 over the past two years. Another 18 sales are pending, Dabney said. Caltrans officials did not respond to a question about how many homes in its portfolio are empty, but agency records from 2024 indicated there were 135 at that time.

State Sen. María Elena Durazo, a Democrat who represents El Sereno and authored legislation on the sales, said it was vital for lawmakers to ensure the properties would be maintained as affordable housing, rather than auctioning them off to the highest bidder. Doing so took time and, as a result, an on-going need for security, she said.

Durazo said she didn’t know enough details about the security billing to determine if it was excessive. But she supported a robust public safety presence, especially with the continued threat of break-ins.

“It was important for that community, which had been through so much, to have that security,” Durazo said.

For the Reclaimers and their supporters, however, the sales delays and public safety spending haven’t matched the urgent needs of people living on the streets. Sandra Saucedo was sleeping in her car before she seized a Caltrans-owned property in the spring 2020 protest. She was evicted this year after turning down offers of cash payments and referrals to other housing in exchange for decamping because she believed the new options wouldn’t be permanent for herself and her 17- and 21-year-old sons. Now, Saucedo, 43, is staying in an RV, and her sons have moved in with their father.

She remains angry that, in her view, “these homes are being hoarded.”

“The politicians aren’t doing anything and people with the need are going to take risks,” Saucedo said. “I don’t blame people for taking shelter.”