Deep cleaning of encampment areas in zones surrounding Mayor Eric Garcetti’s “A Bridge Home” shelters — that require homeless residents to pack up their tents and move — will resume under a plan approved Wednesday by the Los Angeles City Council.
Despite dozens of people calling in to object to the plan, the council voted 10-4 in favor of restoring a process that calls for clearing an area of homeless people and tents so that city sanitation crews could come in to clean the ground underneath.
These types of cleanings will only resume in so-called “special enforcement zones” that form a radius around each of the more than a dozen shelters that have been set up under Garcetti’s “A Bridge Home” initiative.
Dozens of Angelenos and activists who dialed into the meeting Wednesday said that such cleanings, which often rely on enforcement of a city code known as 56.11, can amount to harassment of homeless people who have little access to sanitation services and few adequate alternatives to living on the street.
One caller, a resident from Echo Park, described such operations as “traumatizing” for her homeless neighbors.
“They invite more unnecessary interactions with law enforcement,” she said. “Instead of treating these unhoused people, which are our neighbors, like garbage … we should be providing them with resources to the area — at the very least like trash bins and bathrooms. Those are very helpful to them.”
The cleanup operations are controversial and have faced criticism, including internally by some who were involved in carrying them out. This week, Kristy Lovich, a former supervisor of homeless outreach workers who accompany the sanitation crews on such operations, called for the program to end.
She wrote in a Twitter thread on Saturday that most of the hours she spent working with this team was consumed with “repairing the damage done by these cleanups — finding replacements for (life) saving items, de-escalating retraumatized clients, comforting my team members that called in tears over their participation in a program that was causing harm to the people they were supposed to be helping.”
The Bureau of Sanitation halted such operations in March, amid the novel coronavirus pandemic, because they require that people move their tents out of an area while crews conducted the cleanings. Public health officials recommend that people experiencing homelessness be allowed to remain where they are during the pandemic.
These types of cleanings, which are part of a program called CARE+ (Comprehensive Cleaning and Rapid Engagement Program), were stopped after the council voted on March 17 to suspend enforcement of a part of city code 56.11 that prohibits tents to be erected during the day, from 6 a.m. to 9 p.m.
While CARE+ crews continued to be scheduled, they were only instructed to do “spot cleaning” around encampments. People living in tents were no longer told to move away from the area.
A traditional CARE+ cleanup involves posting notice in advance that a deep cleaning will occur and requires that all belongings be removed from the area being cleaned. Such teams are traditionally accompanied by police officers to aid in enforcement of 56.11.
It remains to be seen whether the council would be able to achieve the cleanings without resorting to enforcement measures. The approval of the motion was met with skepticism by activists who have launched a campaign against the resumption of the CARE+ operations. They described these cleanups as costly and disruptive to the lives of people who are homeless.
Last fiscal year, the implementation of a special enforcement zone around “A Bridge Home” shelters cost the sanitation department at least $902,000. Additional invoices are expected to come in, so the full costs is not yet available, a sanitation spokesperson said.
But the role of police officers in such zones may be shifting. Los Angeles Police Department Chief Michel Moore said Monday evening that initially police officers were assigned 24 hours a day and 7 days a week to those areas, and that more than $8 million of overtime had been allocated this fiscal year to staffing those zones. Now that funding is being reconsidered, and the department may have the area’s senior lead officers be available to respond if needed, Moore said.
And in April, a judge ordered the city to stop throwing away bulky items belonging to homeless people. The city of Los Angeles is appealing the ruling, which was made in a lawsuit filed by a homeless advocates challenging the constitutionality of city code 56.11.
This court ruling, and the lack of CARE+ style cleanups, have “created a perfect storm, and has resulted in accumulation of massive amounts of bulky items on our streets,” Harbor area Councilman Joe Buscaino, who authored the motion to resume the CARE+ cleanups, told his colleagues Wednesday.
Buscaino also showed pictures of encampments that he said were made up of “junk, plain and simple.” The items included door frames, scrap wood, metal and other items.
It was unclear from Buscaino’s presentation how the items were accumulated. People experiencing homelessness frequently derive their income from collecting scrap materials and exchanging them for money at recycling centers, and they often re-use items thrown away by others.
The plan to resume the deep cleanings was backed Wednesday by 10 members of the Los Angeles City Council, and opposed by members Mike Bonin, Herb Wesson, David Ryu and Marqueece Harris-Dawson.
The council also requested a staff report to detail how the cleanings would be carried out, and it was unclear how enforcement would be handled. This was requested by Councilman Mitch O’Farrell, who said he wanted a fine-tuning of protocols that may include a “verification” process that would record adequate outreach was done, and an opportunity for someone to stay in their tents if they are in self-isolation.
Buscaino said he would agree to the re-examination of protocols as long as it helped move forward the overall goal of “cleaning and disinfecting our sidewalks.”
Special enforcement zones have lately drawn more attention, with several such shelters opening their doors in recent months amid efforts by city leaders to address a growing homelessness crisis that has become even more urgent amid the COVID-19 outbreak.
Additional cleaning and the absence of encampments in the area surrounding an “A Bridge Home” shelter is part of a deal struck with community members who may otherwise oppose the projects or be reluctant to accept them.
The incentive was included in the initiative due to concern that such projects will face vigorous opposition from some neighborhoods, despite tens of thousands of people experiencing homelessness in the city of Los Angeles.
Garcetti this week did not respond to requests for comment on the proposal to resume the CARE+ cleanups in these zones, amid the pandemic.
The San Pedro Chamber of Commerce has been following the issue closely, according to Lee Williams, who heads up the chamber’s Board of Directors.
In a written statement, Williams said the chamber appreciated Buscaino’s efforts to bring the issue back before the full council, “reminding them that they promised our community, ‘if we build temporary housing, the city will provide focused services to keep it clean and safe.’”
The statement added: “We are asking the city to keep its promises.”
Two Bridge Home shelters have opened in the Harbor Area this month, one in San Pedro and the other in neighboring Wilmington. Encampments still exist within both shelter areas. Two of the shelters have also opened in the San Fernando Valley, in North Hollywood and Sylmar. At least one more is anticipated to be opened in August, in Van Nuys.
Several communities have opposed and reacted strongly against efforts to create access to such necessities as bathrooms, as well as proposals to build temporary shelters, safe parking sites and affordable housing.
In the latest tally, completed in January prior to the novel coronavirus pandemic, more than 41,000 people were estimated homeless in the city, a 14.2% increase from the previous year. Countywide, the homeless population is estimated at more than 66,400 people.
Cleanup operations performed by crews formed to enforce city code 56.11, which regulate and restrict the storage of property in public areas, proved popular with people who live or own businesses near encampments. Some councilmembers responded to frequent requests for the cleanups. Two years ago, sanitation crews had trouble keeping up with demand. City leaders at the time called for the doubling of their ranks to better address complaints from some residents who report the presence of tents and belongings accumulating on sidewalks.
Last summer, the program was revamped and given the new name of CARE — Comprehensive Cleaning and Rapid Engagement Program. Initially the program was aimed at better addressing the needs of people living on the streets, who have less access to sanitation services such as trash pick-up, as well as hygiene facilities that help improve sanitary conditions on the streets. But those amenities were slow in getting implemented, even as the crews continued to carry out enforcement of city code 56.11.
Meanwhile, the cleanup operations continue to be deeply unpopular among people experiencing homelessness. Many say their belongings are taken away and discarded, and frequent cleanups that require them to pack up their living space and move down to the next block are disruptive and impractical.
Activists also say that laws that restrict the storage of property in a public area, are part of a category of laws that criminalize the state of being homeless. According to a 2019 report by the National Law Center on Homelessness and Poverty, “No Safe Place,” this kind of a law falls into a trend of regulations that affect homeless people’s ability to engage in basic human actions.
Daily Breeze reporter Donna Littlejohn contributed to this story.
