Aryana Noroozi
Johnny Gosney, 57, watched as a home on Locust Avenue was demolished. Gosney has lived in Bloomington for nearly his entire life. The home Gosney lived in for many years of his life, which belonged to his uncle, was also demolished in the process of constructing Bloomington Business Park.
Gosney said that he was only able to identify his uncle’s home by finding a lid on the ground of its septic tank.
“With all the warehouses, it’s just life moving forward,” Gosney said. “I’ve lost all my family, my dad, my uncle, but it’s just something else to see it happening. It’s like the future, here it is.”
Six years ago, Xochitl Pedraza left the Los Angeles area and moved to Bloomington for the rural lifestyle. Her family’s move was similar to many. The area is historically known for welcoming an influx of Angelenos and other residents from across Southern California. Many people move to the region due to the lower cost of living and rural lifestyle.
Today in Bloomington, after hundreds of families were displaced by warehouse development, Pedraza said her neighborhood feels like a warzone or a scene from an apocalyptic movie. She described it as despairing.
Previous reporting by Black Voice News documents how this community was impacted by warehouse developers coming into the neighborhood and making offers on homes. This has resulted in over one hundred families relocating and their Bloomington homes being demolished. While this previous BVN reporting showed the complexity of issues related to the growing warehouse industry in the inland region as it was being experienced by the Bloomington community, including the dangers the logistics industry poses, this photo series documents the aftermath experienced by those left behind and the mental impacts that the demolition of one’s neighborhood can have on these residents.
“Your neighborhood disappears, it’s creepy,” Pedraza said. “Then, there’s also fear because you think, what are we breathing? … [The vacated homes] also left a lot of trash and a lot of houses have lead [paint] and asbestos.”
Pedraza described the mental toll as feeling in limbo and constant uncertainty.
“Do I make my house beautiful? [Is it] then going to end up in ruins like those [other homes]? What for?” She expressed, describing the limbo. “If you’re going to sell, where are you gonna go? If you don’t sell, what is coming? What am I breathing? What am I going to have in the future?”
Last September, San Bernardino County Superior Court Judge Donald Alvarez ruled that the county’s review of the project failed to meet California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) requirements designed to inform decision makers and the public about the project’s potential environmental impacts. As a result, he ordered construction on the warehouse project to be halted, while permits for demolition were still allowed, until the county revised its Environmental Impact Report (EIR) to comply with the law.
In December 2024, the community was able to submit comments about this project. The developer is currently working on a new environmental impact report that will then be presented to the San Bernardino County Board of Supervisors who will then vote again on the project.
While the fight against the Bloomington Business Park has split residents over the preservation of the community, today, with a majority of the 117 homes already demolished, the conversation among residents is centered around whose address will be the next one to be rezoned for commercial land use; deciding to sell or take a buy-out offer; or be the last one left in their community.
Reporting for this story was supported by the Pulitzer Center. Aryana Noroozi is a 2024 Pulitzer Center Reporting Fellow.