Bryan D. Brown

Things are finally settling down. Our move to the new place is officially complete. (Hopefully) I’ll be motivated to update more frequently.

So it turns out that drunken undergraduates aren’t the only ones causing trouble in Isla Vista:

I.V. Uprooted (The Santa Barbara Independent)

More than 50 Isla Vista families will be scrambling for new lodgings in the next few weeks, having received 30-day notices to vacate the Cedarwood Apartments. The notices were issued by Dennis P. Block and Associates of Los Angeles, a law firm specializing in evictions. Claiming at least 100,000 evictions in 30 years of business, Block bragged that his firm has ?evicted more tenants than any other firm on the planet Earth.? Asked whether the tenants would receive relocation assistance, Block responded that his client would ?follow the law???nothing less, and nothing more.? His client is a limited liability corporation known only as 6626 Picasso???Cedarwood?s address.

According to the Isla Vista Tenants Union (via the Daily Kos), the perpetrator of this atrocity is Conquest Student Housing, based in Los Angeles.

There is a rumor spreading that the Isla Vista Property Owners Association has opposed these evictions - although that’s the same organization that opposed the just-cause eviction ordinance that was proposed to the Santa Barbara County Board of Supervisors back in 1998 - when these sorts of evictions started happening. Since 1998, Isla Vista is averaging about one mass eviction every two years. If the IVPA really does care about families such as these, they should put their money - their humongous stacks of money - where their mouths are and support an ordinance.

Isla Vista will continue to suffer greatly until it either gets incorporated (into Goleta or Santa Barbara, and over their dead bodies) or the County Board of Supervisors stops messing around and directly addresses the quality of life issues that Isla Vista faces. Frankly, I don’t think the Board of Supervisors really give a damn about Isla Vista, nor do I think Goleta or Santa Barbara want to inherit what they view as a mess (never mind the sales income Isla Vista residents generate for Goleta - especially Goleta). While these politicians keep messing around, the 98% tenant population continues to get the shaft.