Cleanup crew returns to homeless camp on industrial park roads
Bracing for yet another encampment cleanup, Wyatt Young surveyed his belongings and began to make some choices.
“I don’t mind cleaning up,” he said, “but it’ll all be back next week.”
Young is among an estimated 30 to 40 people who now pitch their tents on an industrial park’s dirt roads off Lomita Boulevard, at the LomitaMcCoy encampment, in Harbor City.
And as the sun rose Thursday morning, Young and his neighbors began what is now a regular process of sorting through their items, deciding
what can go and what they need or want to keep, before Los Angeles City Sanitation trucks rumbled up.
Proponents of the cleanups, like Councilman Joe Buscaino, have said the goal is to move toward safe sidewalks for the community while the city also works to address the homeless crisis. The encampments have caused growing concern in many communities throughout Los Angeles, where some sidewalks are crowded with tents and sleeping bags. But the cleanups have come under fire from homeless advocates, including L.A. Street Watch, which had volunteers on hand Thursday to help residents clean up and pack up for what would be a forced, temporary move while sanitation crews came in for the final collection run.
Critics refer to the cleanups as sweeps, saying they displace and disrupt those living on the streets. Less invasive, but more consistent, spot cleanings and clearing out trash bins is a better approach, some say.
“It’s very frustrating,” said Redondo Beach resident and L.A. Street Watch member Micah Ezzes, “and we’re just out here to advocate as much as we can for the folks living here.”
The city suspended the cleanups in March 2020 because of the coronavirus pandemic, but Buscaino, who represents the Harbor Area, persuaded a majority of colleagues to reinstate the comprehensive deep cleanings four months later.
Now, the Lomita-McCoy encampment is one of three in the Harbor Area that are on a regular comprehensive cleanup rotation, with each area targeted every few weeks, a city official said.
Plans are also moving forward, meanwhile, on several other homeless initiatives set to come into the Harbor Area in the next few months. They include:
• A village of 75 pallet (sometimes called “tiny”) homes that will be built across from Los Angeles Harbor College, in Wilmington, which will open in May and house up to 80 people, with some larger units accommodating couples;
• Safe Parking locations, where those living in their cars can park overnight with supervision, that will open Monday on a lot at 19610 S. Hamilton Ave., in Harbor Gateway, and at a county parking lot at Seventh and Palos Verdes streets, in San Pedro; each will host up to 25 cars under
A former resident of the homeless encampment gives volunteers from Street Watch L.A. gloves along with shovels and rakes to help people clean up.
what is a three-year commitment; and
• The Travelodge in Harbor Gateway and the Motel 6 in Harbor City, which have been purchased by the city and county, respectively, that will be converted into housing, though Project Roomkey won’t renew its contract with the Sunrise Hotel, on Harbor Boulevard at Sixth Street, in San Pedro because the structure needs too many repairs.
Gabriela Medina, a Buscaino staffer who oversees homeless issues for Council District 15, announced those plans at a recent Harbor Community Police Advisory
Board meeting in San Pedro.
The new housing plans announced this month, Medina said, will provide an additional 1,183 housed units for homeless folks in the area.
To date, there are 2,257 people who are homeless in District 15, with 50% living on the streets and 50% living in vehicles. Buscaino’s district includes Watts, Harbor Gateway, Harbor City, Wilmington and San Pedro.
Services were offered to all of those contacted at the Lomita-McCoy encampment, the council office said.
At the Lomita-McCoy cleanup last month, Street Watch L.A. conducted a car barricade, which blocked the sanitation trucks from entering the encampment area.
This time, the city preempted a repeat by posting temporary “No Parking” and tow-away signs, with LAPD officers on hand to enforce the restriction.
For the homeless, the day appeared to be stressful.
Shauna Castle, who has lived at Lomita-McCoy for three years, said the city informed the encampment of a small cleanup in November, but instead used bulldozers to haul away everything,
People gather their belongings and clean up at a homeless encampment off McCoy Avenue and West 253rd Street.
leaving them with little protection during three days of heavy rain over the Thanksgiving holiday.
“I know they’re doing their job but they are destroying our lives repeatedly,” she said in a conversation with a Sanitation worker. “I don’t want to be here more than you don’t want me here.”
Workers on Thursday discarded overly soiled blankets and bedding that residents had voluntarily set aside as trash and packed other items too numerous to keep in the encampment into large plastic bags that can be reclaimed by the owners at a remote location — nicknamed by the homeless as “The Bin.”
Adding to the trash, Young said, are items “dumped” there from cars, including some things wellmeaning
folks think the encampment’s residents need, but don’t. Extra food dropped off also adds to the piles of waste, Young said.
If property isn’t soiled, it gets sorted, said Medina, who was among city staff members present at the cleanup.
Workers from the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority enter the encampments first, Medina said, speaking with residents and offering services, including housing, if it’s available.
The coronavirus, though, has complicated things, Medina said, as new temporary shelters have had to go on quarantine several times and some people have turned down housing once they hear they can have no visitors because of the pandemic.
“It’s just hard,” she said.