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Her apartment is in such poor condition that Teresa Arroyo believes it is making her children ill.
The son and daughter, ages 2 and 3, must use inhalers to ease asthma, an affliction that they developed only after moving in, and that their mother attributes to moldy carpets and a cockroach infestation. A rash on their feet makes the skin peel away.
Arroyo points to mushrooms growing from the ceiling of her shower.
Next door, a defective water heater lacks a brace that would keep it steady during an earthquake.
"This place is a deathtrap," said city housing inspector Ray Cobbett, who went to Arroyo's apartment complex in Sun Valley armed with disinfectant and cuffless pants--two essentials to warding off pests while on the job in the northeast San Fernando Valley.
A wave of immigrants and working poor has swept into the communities of Pacoima, Sylmar, Arleta and Sun Valley, triggering a housing crisis that has left many families unable to find decent shelter. Vacancy rates have plummeted to 2% in some areas, and rents have increased dramatically.
The affordable housing crunch that has hit much of Los Angeles is particularly acute here, said tenant rights attorneys and homeless shelter operators. The wait on the list for Los Angeles' main rent subsidy program is up to 12 years.
A recent city survey found that more than a third of residential properties are unsound, with many needing major work to be made legally habitable. Yet people live in them anyway.
Multiple families crowd into small houses, rundown trailers and garages. Many cannot find housing anywhere in the Valley, and are forced to move north to the High Desert, far from jobs.
The most desperate find one more alternative: In a time of unprecedented prosperity nationwide, the area is experiencing "an explosion in homelessness," said shelter director Casey Horan.
"We've seen a 60% increase in the last 11 months in terms of people searching for housing," said Horan, director of the Women's Care Cottage, a northeast Valley homeless shelter.
Despite statistics showing that more than 30% of northeast Valley residents live in poverty, that the area has Los Angeles' highest rate of building and safety code violations, and that overcrowding averages 37% more severe than the...