Neighbors fed up with growing homeless encampment at RV storage lot in City of Industry

CITY OF INDUSTRY, Calif. (KABC) -- Neighbors and businesses in the City of Industry are fed up with a growing homeless encampment at a lot meant to store vacant RVs.

About 50 RVs that are supposed to be vacant have been broken into and turned into a place to stay for the homeless. There's been fires and vandalism at the storage lot.

The lot is located near Azusa and Gale avenues and is leased out to multiple people, including the RV company Black Series and the Nissan dealership across the street.

"People just started coming in, taking ownership of them, and they started vandalizing them, living in them, breaking windows," said Gerardo Torres, who works at the Nissan dealership.

The dealership employees keep their personal cars and overflow cars there, too. They've dealt with fires and stolen tires.

"Some of my colleagues actually did say they had altercations with some people over there, but we don't want it to get to that point," Torres said.

It's been eight months of the mess, Torres said.

A statement from city manager Joshua Nelson says in part:

"The City has been working diligently with the owners of the property and the Industry Sheriff's station to resolve the issues at Gale and Azusa Avenues. The City does not own the site. This is a private trespass dispute between the property owners and a private party. The City is working with the property owners in helping to coordinate clean up efforts at the site."

One man who says he works for the property manager says bulldozers will be brought in.

"This week or the end of next week we'll start cleaning up the mess and disposing the trailers and so forth," Edward Ramirez said.