LOS ANGELES (CN) — Hundreds of advocates for the homeless protested outside Los Angeles’ Echo Park Lake on Thursday as a massive police presence presided over a city-sanctioned clearing of a houseless community.
Jerome Davis, 50, has been sleeping in the homeless camp for over a week. The camp provided food, access to social workers, showers, a community garden and a relatively safe place to sleep.
As city workers cleared the park on a cold evening, Davis stood without his jacket, his tent and other belongings that were locked behind a police-guarded fence lining the public park.
“They said I could leave to get some food,” Davis, who has been homeless for over 20 years, said in an interview with Courthouse News. “No one told me I couldn’t come back to get my things. I just want my jacket.”
Without his belongings and unsure where he would sleep Thursday night, Davis embodies the aftermath that advocates feared would come from a rushed clearing of the park: confusion, lack of access to promised city services and further harm.
Los Angeles officials said Thursday the park had been mostly cleared and at least 200 of the homeless community’s inhabitants were either placed in winter shelters, moved into hotel rooms temporarily or offered a “transitional” housing unit that provides health services.
In a state where more than 161,000 people are sleeping on the street on any given night, Los Angeles is at the forefront of the housing and homelessness crisis.
The challenges associated with getting tens of thousands of people off the street — where an estimated four houseless people die each day — and into housing have only compounded during the Covid-19 pandemic.
Last year, homelessness countywide increased by 13% over the prior year, rising to more than 66,000 people living on the street in a region where an estimated 150 people fall into homelessness each day.
The city and county have faced lawsuits over their actions on homelessness and were recently ordered by a federal judge to ramp up temporary and permanent housing options.
The county is far from its goal of housing 10,000 homeless people in hotel rooms subsidized through the state-sponsored Project Roomkey.
As of Monday, 1,700 rooms in the program were occupied and just under 3,000 rooms were “under contract,” according to county data.
For years, LA authorities have ordered controversial “sweeps” of encampments while claiming homeless people are being offered temporary housing and shelter beds.
LA City Councilman Mitch O’Farrell, who represents the district Echo Park is located in, repeated that claim Thursday, saying in a statement that at least 120 have been offered “transitional housing” this month.
O’Farrell said the so-called “sweep” of the Echo Park encampment is a necessary prerequisite for a nearly $500,000 renovation that will supposedly clean and revamp the park.
“Everyone who visits Echo Park Lake, including people experiencing homelessness, are at great risk in this dangerous environment, and we have identified housing solutions for everyone who has consistently lodged there since January,” O’Farrell said.
O’Farrell’s office also said the park has become “very dangerous” for all residents, adding that a string of reported deaths, drug use and violence have made the park inaccessible.
Echo Park residents refuted that narrative and joined the protests Thursday.
Kate Linnell, a 20-year resident of Echo Park told Courthouse News she was joining the protests in solidarity with homeless people who she says have suffered more than most during the Covid-19 pandemic.
“The state needs to do the right thing: to look at this as though it’s happening to them,” Linnell said. “They’re here because the park is safe. It’s so much safer than being under a freeway.”