Activists, community members protest against replacing Boyle Heights senior care facility with apartments

BOYLE HEIGHTS, LOS ANGELES (KABC) -- Activists and community members are making it clear they do not want a Boyle Heights retirement facility replaced with apartments.

Sakura Gardens is a senior living facility that provides culturally sensitive care to Japanese American seniors. Senior rights activists and residents gathered Wednesday to protest outside the facility. They want to prevent the senior living facility from being replaced with a new apartment complex.

One of these protesters was actress Tamlyn Tomita.

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"How would you feel if these were your parents? These are our parents, our aunties and uncles, our grandparents," Tomita said.

Keiro, a non-profit, owned Sakura Gardens along with three other facilities in Los Angeles County. Keiro focuses on helping the Japanese American community by providing culturally sensitive services to seniors. The non-profit sold the sites in 2016 to a for-profit company called Pacifica Companies.

"The Japanese American community and the API community has had a long history in our district, one of struggle and empowerment," Assemblymember Miguel Santiago, who represents Boyle Heights.

In 2015, then-State Attorney General Kamala Harris approved the sale to Pacifica Companies under conditions that the company maintain the services at Sakura Gardens that the previous owner provided. That requirement ends in February.

Last September, Pacifica submitted a proposal to the City of Los Angeles to turn the Boyle Heights facility into an apartment building. The company has applied for permits with L.A.'s Department of Building and Safety, but none have been issued.

"It is not just a Japanese-American issue, it's a neighborhood community issue," said Tomita. "These are folks who have built our community all together so many years ago. These are the folks that built this city raising their family through the good times and the bad."

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Santiago and Assemblymember Al Muratsuchi, who represents the district containing one of the four sites, penned a letter to current Attorney General Xaviera Becerra, asking him to extend and enforce the previous conditions.

They're worried the nearly 70 seniors living at Sakura Gardens would be transferred to facilities with reports of COVID-19 cases.

"We're gonna fight as hard as we possibly can to ensure that seniors don't get kicked out," said Santiago. Santiago and Muratsuchi also introduced A.B. 279, a legislative solution that could help seniors at any facility.

"We want to prevent the sale of senior care facilities to developers for market rate housing," said Santiago. "At least during the pandemic, that'll buy us enough time to get something bigger done."

ABC7 reached out to Pacifica Companies and to the Office of the Attorney General for a comment. As of now, we have not heard back from them.