Musician Dennis Henriquez woke up at a doorway in East Hollywood last month, hiding behind a cardboard box and being protected by a tarp.
As he peered outside, a half dozen sanitary workers were standing nearby, waiting to carry out one of the city’s planned cleanings of more than 30 homeless encampments.
Henriques eventually appeared, ran a bike and deposited in a grassy area 20 feet away. He also dragged his backpack, scooter, two guitars, luggage and a beach chair.
The City Sanitary Crew grabbed tarps and cardboard boxes and threw them into the garbage truck. The conditions of city workers, including two police officers, then climbed up the vehicle, drove, leaving behind Henriquez and a mountain of belongings.
This type of operation, known as carepler screen-up, plays hundreds of times a week in cities, and sanitary crews seize and destroy tents, tarps, pallets, shopping carts and many other objects.
Cleanup has emerged as a major source of conflict in a legal dispute five years ago regarding the handling of the city’s homeless crisis. Depending on how the cleanup problem is resolved, the city could face legal sanctions, multi-million dollar penalties, or an increase in external surveillance for homeless programs.
Construction Loaders will pass through the ruins of a homeless camp on Wilshire Boulevard, just west of downtown.
(Etienne Laurent / for the era)
The hygiene crew grabs the mattress during cleanup. (Etienne Laurent / for the era)
Cleanup notifications will appear on the Utility Pole on Wilshire Boulevard. (Etienne Laurent / for the era)
In 2022, city leaders reached a legal settlement with the Alliance, a nonprofit for human rights, pledging to create 12,915 homeless beds or other housing opportunities by June 2027. Ultimately, he agreed to remove 9,800 homeless camps by June 2026.
To reach the latter goal, city leaders count each camp that was removed from streets, sidewalks and alleyways during the Department of Health Care Cleanup, whether residents do not obtain housing or shelter beds or have not obtained a Department of Health Care and Shelter bed.
The alliance strongly opposes urban methodology and argues that destroying tents without accommodating residents is a violation of the 2022 settlement agreement. Alliance lawyer Elizabeth Mitchell said that the “campus resolution” tallied by the city must be more permanent and must address the larger goal of reducing homelessness.
“If the person insisted on staying where he was and nothing else happened, that’s not the solution,” she said. “They can’t count that.”
City leaders have been implementing careplastic screening for many years, saying it is necessary to protect public safety and restore sidewalk access for wheelchair users, seniors and others. Some camps are scattered with debris, some of which come across the entire aisle and streets, but carry the smell of urine, feces, or rotten food waste.
Cleanup has the quality of sisyphean. Many veteran residents drag their tents into the streets, wait for cleanup before returning to their original spot in the afternoon. This process will restart frequently after 1-2 weeks.
The Alliance legal team was wary of including care and cleaning in the camp cut count, but recently spent several days trying to convince a federal judge to seize control of the city’s homeless initiative from Mayor Karen Bass and the city council and hand them over to third party recipients.
US dist. Judge David O. Carter, who presides over the case, refused to take that step, saying it went too far. However, he made it clear that he also opposed the city’s approach to eliminating 9,800 camps.
In March, Carter issued a court order that the city may not count care and cleaning towards that goal, as they are “intrinsically not permanent,” as the alliance claimed.
Last month, in a 62-page ruling, he discovered that the city was “deliberately dependent” on the order, improperly reporting its camp cuts. With his position somewhat clearer, the judge also said the city cannot count the cuts in camps unless “involved by offers of shelter or housing.”
“Individuals do not need to accept offers, but they must make offers for shelter or housing available,” he wrote.
Attorney Sheila Myers, who represents the homeless advocacy group that intervened in the case, opposed the goal of 9,800 from the start, saying that city workers would create a quota system that would increase the likelihood that city workers would violate property rights without residents.
“Dropping your tent won’t help the homeless crisis,” she said. “That’s the case with the houses in the building.”
Shayna, who has been experiencing homelessness, moves things out of her tent during the camp cleaning on June 24th.
(Etienne Laurent / for the era)
City manager Matt Zabo, who helped negotiate the settlement, told the court last month that his office would not count tents that would temporarily move either temporarily or across the street while cleaning the city. However, the city has permanently been removed to block sidewalks and pose a threat to public health and safety, he said.
Szabo said in his testimony that when he negotiated a promise to remove 9,800 camps, he didn’t think that removing all the tents would lead to someone moving inwards.
The city is already working to meet the requirements of the Alliance Agreement to create 12,915 homeless beds or other housing opportunities. Additionally, Zabo said that residents of the camp have a “free will” to reject the offer of housing.
“I don’t agree that cities have an obligation to force people to accept them in some way. [housing] If they didn’t want to accept it, he said. “We probably never agreed to that. We didn’t agree.”
It may be difficult for external observers to identify that different types of urban camping work are designed to be achieved.
Mary, who has been experiencing homelessness, will speak to police officers during the June 24th cleanup.
(Etienne Laurent / for the era)
The Bass’ Inside Safe Initiative moves homeless people to hotel and motel rooms, and at least in some cases to permanent homes. In contrast, care cleanup – shorthand for cleanup and quick engagement – focuses primarily on trash removal, with crews carrying debris from curbs and surrounding areas.
Carepler screen-up is more comprehensive. All tents need to be moved. This allows workers to carry debris and, in some cases, power wash sidewalks.
Sanitary crews are to give residents advance warnings about scheduled care and cleanup and post notifications on the utility pole. If residents do not move their tents or other belongings, they risk taking them away.
In some cases, the cleanup crew will take their property to a storage facility in downtown. In many others, they are thrown.
Construction loaders transport the remains of Westlake camp into city trash trucks.
(Etienne Laurent / for the era)
One of the biggest care and positive cleanups in recent weeks took place in the Westlake area. There, almost three dozen tents and structures lined up Wilshire Boulevard stretches. Construction loaders went back and forth across the sidewalk, scooped up the tent and left it in the trash bin.
Ryan Cranford, 42, said he didn’t know that the cleanup was scheduled for a few minutes ago. He lost his tent, bed and canopy, but managed to keep his backpack saying that “everything matters” was included.
Sitting on the nearby retaining wall, Cranford said he would have accepted the motel room if anyone had offered it.
“Hell, I even took the bus to get back to Oklahoma if I could,” he said.
On the other side of the street, Tyson Lewis Angels moved his belongings down the street in a shopping cart before the sanitary workers descended to his spot. He said the outreach workers gave him a shelter bed referral the day before.
Before the city sanitary workers descend to his spot on Wilshire Boulevard, Tyson Lewis Angels, experiencing homelessness, hugs his dog Nami.
(Etienne Laurent / for the era)
Angeles, 30, said she wasn’t interested as she also deals with panic attacks, PTSD and other mental health issues. He also does not want the rules imposed by roommates or homeless shelters.
“Basically, it’s like a volunteer prison,” he said.
Angeles was able to protect his property, but others often do not succeed.
Nicholas Johnson, who lives in a box truck in Silver Lake, said the city crew robbed most of their belongings during a careplastic screen-up in mid-June. Some were destroyed and others were taken to downtown storage facilities by sanitation workers, he said.
Johnson, 56, said he doesn’t know if some of his most precious possessions, including letters written by his grandmother, entered the facility or were thrown. The city crew also took books, tools, bowls of his Buddhist prayers, and a huge amount of clothes.
“All my clothes – all my clothes – everything that’s worn and sold is a mixture of wearables. Hats, scarves, socks, ties, many accessories I wear – you’re a double chest suit from the 30s, suit pants,” he said.
Nicholas Johnson, who lives with dog popcorn in a truck parked in Silver Lake, said the city had taken many of his precious possessions during the recent camp cleaning.
(Jason Armand/Los Angeles Times)
Johnson said the city’s cleanup process is “harassing” and only makes life more stressful for people on the streets.
“When they knew you were already down, they attacked you with your patella,” he said.
Earlier this year, city officials notified the court that they had deleted around 6,100 tents, makeshift shelters and vehicles. It remains to be seen whether the city will challenge some of the judge’s decisions.
In a statement, the city’s attorney argued that the ruling “misunderstands the city’s obligations.”
“We’re opening up options for the next step,” said attorney Theane Evangelis.
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