Mail delivery suspended at L.A. public housing complex with over 1,800 residents

[dalton99a]

https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2020-08-28/mar-vista-mail

Mail delivery suspended at L.A. public housing complex with over 1,800 residents
By Emily Alpert Reyes
Aug. 28, 2020

Mail delivery has been suspended at Mar Vista Gardens, a public housing complex with more than 1,800 tenants in the Los Angeles neighborhood of Del Rey, forcing residents to pick up mail and packages at a Culver City facility over a mile away.

Culver City Post Office Postmaster Roderick Strong told officials at the Housing Authority of the City of Los Angeles this week that mail delivery was immediately being put on hold because of safety issues at the 43-acre housing complex.

Strong had previously cited safety issues as a reason to set up centralized banks of mailboxes at Mar Vista Gardens instead of delivering mail to each door, an idea that troubled residents of the complex. Tenant leaders had raised concerns about voting in the upcoming elections and questioned why the same changes were not happening in wealthier areas.

In a Wednesday email to city staffers, Strong said that after two incidents reported by postal employees this week — one involving a threatening tenant, another an “uncontrollable dog” — he was suspending mail delivery to Mar Vista Gardens until the new centralized banks of mailboxes are set up at the housing complex.

[Thekaspervote]

1. Centralized mailboxes are the norm in many large housing complexes, condos & apartment bldgs

[tulipsandroses]

2. Why are 1798 people being punished if the problem is with 2 tenants?

If the dog is threatening - if the owner does not want to keep the animal in check- Call animal control. Seems simple.
I've called animal control more than once in my life. What's the problem here?


It seems outrageous that all the other residents have to pay the price. Smells fishy. The tenant leaders should not let this issue go.

[virgogal]

4. As it said in the article they had safety issues before.

[SharonClark]

5. The job of mail carriers is to deliver the mail.

They are not police, social workers, or tenant leaders. If Animal Control needs to be called that is the responsibility of the neighboring tenants or tenant leaders, not mail carriers.

[SharonClark]

3. Public housing of over 43 acres and 1800 people

is asking for trouble. That’s just warehousing people and not building communities.

Public housing needs to be integrated into the larger community, not walled off into low income ghettos that concentrate whatever negative issues some of the tenants may have.

Building centralized post boxes may solve the immediate issue of mail delivery but doesn’t fix the problems public housing like this creates.

It made me very sad to read this story.