The mystery remains over who is responsible for placing a series of concrete barriers on streets throughout the West Valley in Southern California.

Some believe the concrete cinder blocks are an effort to prevent homeless encampments and recreational vehicles (RVs) from parking in the area long-term.

Recently, the heavy, bright-colored blocks were installed in an industrial area of Chatsworth, just off Nordhoff Avenue. In other areas, rows of large 60-gallon barrels of water were placed on the street instead. 

Both city officials and the mayor’s office confirmed they did not install the barriers or water barrels. 

Residents in the area remain puzzled. Although the motive remains unclear, homeless advocates said the blocks are not a helpful solution to issues of homelessness.

However, residents and nearby business owners confirmed the barriers have been an effective deterrent against encampments and excess trash. 

Pastor Kathy Huck is the CEO of About My Father’s Business Homeless Outreach, a nonprofit organization dedicated to helping and advocating for homeless residents.

Huck said the blocks and barrels are actually hurting the unhoused population.

“These barriers are not the answer,” Huck said. “To live in an RV is, I would say, discouraged because there’s no barrier for tents, but there are barriers in streets all over the West Valley for RVs.”

Huck said about 75% of the people she serves across the San Fernando Valley rely on their RV for shelter.

Many of her clients’ vehicles are in danger and subject to towing or destruction on a daily basis. With these blockades in place, they’re essentially displaced because they can’t find a safe place to park. 

Huck said it also makes the job of homeless outreach workers more difficult because they can’t locate these individuals to help.

“We’re spending money trying to find people so we can get them immediate needs so that they’re taken care of until they are placed,” Huck explained. “How are people finding their clients? So, this undermines the City’s efforts to house people because you can’t house people that you can’t find.”

Tobie Von Bloes and Rob Lowe, a couple who lives in their RV, said it’s been tough to find a safe place to stop and rest.

“I just think people don’t really understand what we’re going through,” Lowe said. “They don’t like us here for some reason.”

“It’s getting really hard to find a place to park,” Von Bloes said. “And we’re just doing the best we can to live our lives. I think there are people that have given us a bad name and so the businesses really frown down on the motor homes.” 

The L.A. Department of Water and Power also said they are unaware of the barriers. KTLA has reached out to the Department of Transportation and is awaiting a response.

If a private group or citizen is responsible for installing the barriers, the legality of the move remains in question. 

Residents are on high alert after a group of burglars targeted homes in the Santa Clarita Valley.

In the last week alone, at least three homes inside a gated community in Valencia were burglarized. 

Neighbors believe their community is being targeted by a South American crime ring and the suspects may even be tracking their every move with drone surveillance.

“A few days ago, we noticed that there were drones flying above our house,” a resident, who did not wish to be identified, told KTLA’s Ellina Abovian.

Surveillance cameras captured the burglars’ images as they trespassed onto victims’ properties and smashed their way into homes.

“It appears they’re using sophisticated technology to surveil the home to see who’s home and who’s not,” the resident said.

Some neighbors decided to follow the drones which led them to a nearby parking lot outside a La Quinta Inn where a group of men were spotted. The men reportedly fit the description of the burglars seen in victims’ surveillance images. 

“There’s five of them who were hanging out together and as soon as they noticed that they were being watched, they all took off and ran in different directions,” the resident said.

The victims suspect the burglars are part of a crime tourism burglary ring from South America. 

Crime tourism often involves foreign nationals who visit the U.S. with the sole purpose of committing theft. 

Recently, an uptick in crime tourism has been reported across the Southland and beyond. The homes of Kansas City Chiefs stars Patrick Mahomes and Travis Kelce were burglarized in October by what investigators believed was a South American crime ring.

“It’s frustrating,” Mahomes said of the break-ins during a recent press conference. “It’s disappointing.”

In August, six people in Southern California were arrested in connection to a tourism burglary ring after a Van Nuys car rental business was reportedly facilitating the illicit deeds.

For now, residents in the Valencia community remain frustrated as they’re forced to be on high alert. Some have even hired security patrols to protect their properties while also keeping an eye on their neighbors’ homes.

“There have been extra patrols, but it’s just very hard to get anything done with the current crime sprees happening in California,” the resident said.

Authorities are aware of the incidents and are investigating the burglaries, but so far, no arrests have been made.

A Chinese man living in Los Angeles was sentenced to almost two years in federal prison for his role in trying to bribe an IRS official at the behest of the Chinese government.

Earlier this year, John Chen, 71, admitted that he served as an unregistered agent of the Chinese government and tried to bribe who he thought was an IRS agent to revoke the tax-exempt status of Falun Gong, a U.S.-based new religious movement. The scheme was first reported by Seamus Hughes’ Court Watch.

Falun Gong, perhaps best known for the Shen Yun dance performances and news outlet The Epoch Times, opposes the Chinese Communist Party’s control of the country.

Alongside co-conspirator Lin Feng, 44, Chen “worked inside the United States at the direction of the [People’s Republic of China] government … to further the PRC government’s campaign to repress and harass Falun Gong practitioners,” the U.S. Department of Justice said in a news release.

Using multiple payments of several thousand dollars each and promising at least $50,000 if an audit were opened, Chen and Feng worked with government officials from the People’s Republic of China to “carry out the PRC government’s aim of ‘toppl[ing] . . . the Falun Gong,’” prosecutors wrote.

As a result, Chen was sentenced to 20 months in prison and three years of supervised release, and he’ll forfeit $50,000 as well.

Feng was sentenced in September to a time-served sentence of 16 months in prison.

Each faced a maximum sentence of 25 years in prison.