The Covid-19 pandemic has seen the accelerated growth of large encampments for unhoused individuals in Los Angeles. The Los Angeles City council approved an ordinance banning unhoused individuals from sitting, sleeping, or lying down at 54 designated locations in three city districts to quell the increasing unhoused population. The controversial law outlawing encampments for people without homes received a near-unanimous vote of 12-2 and will affect tens of thousands of unhoused living in tents and sidewalk encampments.

However, the new sweeping measures do not take the same approach for all locations. It assumes a case-by-case system where different districts apply different rules to enact the new resolutions. Also, the council members who didn’t support the ordinance or had divergent opinions on the solutions will have power over implementing the ban on encampments for the unhoused in their districts.

The council members had differing ideas on the ordinance with Joe Buscaino, who is currentlyrunning for mayor, saying he will do everything to implement the ordinance to the letter and called for more stringent measures in the future. To him, those people living without homes and being offered shelter should move in, leave the encampment or face the severe consequences of the law.

However, Councilman Mike Bonin, who opposed this new resolution, feels that the unhoused lie, sleep or sit on sidewalks because they have nowhere to go.  Bonin opines that the unhoused do not require shelter or warehousing. Their problem is housing, and the city should focus on resolving the housing issue and not more resources.

Prohibitions Under the New Ordinance

The new rules prohibit unhoused individuals from setting camp within 500 feet of public parks, schools, daycare facilities, underpasses, subway stations, libraries, railroad tracks, and freeway ramps. As per the ordinance, camping is outlawed in any location where it interferes with passage for persons with disabilities or is protected under the Disabilities Act. 

Again, the ordinance allows the city to ban unhoused encampments in any locations that are risky to the public health and safety due to any of the following:

  • Death or severe physical harm on an individual at an encampment due to dangerous conditions.
  • Constant serious or violent crimes or threat of violent crimes like human trafficking or rape.
  • Regular fires at an encampment.

Similarly, the unhoused are prohibited from camping no more than 1,000 feet of shelter, safe sleeping, parking, or navigation centers opened on 1st Jan 2018 for individuals without houses.

However, these laws won’t just be enforced. Mayor Eric Garcetti, the LA Police Department LAPD, and the council president Nury Martinez in a statement to the press, said that apart from accessibility obstruction, including those violating the Disability act, the new measures won’t be enforced until the city council passes a Street Engagement Strategy linking the unhoused to services and housing. However, the housing and other services required can only be provided if a skilled, trusted, and reliable outreach team effectively engages the unhoused in the streets before removing them from the prohibited areas.

Enforcing the Ordinance

There is no clear framework on how the new measures will be enforced. However, most council members and officials in favor of the law say any violation should be considered an infraction whose sentence is a monetary court fine. The law stipulates that a street engagement strategy will be deployed along with the new measures. An outreach team of skilled individuals will also be deployed to offer services and shelter to people living on the streets.

The LAPD will act with discretion and notify the public when and where a crackdown for illegal encampments will happen during the enforcement. Also, various city districts will adopt a case-by-case approach on the kind and designated location to a crackdown on camps for people without homes.

The new rules propose that before clearing the encampments, people living in these encampments should be given a fourteen-day notice informing them they are prohibited from lying, sleeping, or sitting in the designated part of the city. The city report recommends that those who will be on these sites within the notice period be engaged by the outreach staff to find a solution to their housing needs. However, the signs to be placed on these encampment sites are yet to be printed due to staffing issues and material shortages. So, it’s unclear when the city will begin the implementation of the new framework. 

And because enacting the ordinance requires a new framework, the city administrative office presented a report in the meeting. The information contained inputs of council members on the new framework and the best practices city and county outreach team can adopt to ensure its success. However, the measures face many hurdles because the outreach workers are yet to be hired.

Also, various city departments need to enact rules to protect the unhoused sleeping on sidewalks from eviction without proper notices. In the meeting, Yolanda Chavez, an assistant city administrative officer, said that the newly adopted framework was housing-oriented. Therefore, housing resources must be available if encampments were to be cleared because the objective is to review the needs of the unhoused individuals and link them to the appropriate services or housing. 

Council Members who Voted “N0” on the Ordinance and Why

Not all council members supported this new measure because they felt the decision was being rushed and that there was a need to stop enacting the law for some time until resources were allocated to the project. Council members who aired their views opposing the ordinance include Mike Bonin and Nithya Raman. They felt that a lot of work towards the project was yet to be done and that it’s until this work was completed that the city could authorize the posting of signs.

According to Bonin, the LA Homeless Services Authority can only shelter 39% of the unhoused population in their beds, leaving 61% in the streets. He felt that there was a need to increase the bed capacity in shelters around the city before enacting the new law. The councilman went ahead to share his experience being unhoused with other council members. He said that when he didn’t have a house to go to, he could sleep in the car, and when the vehicle was unavailable, he could spend the nights on the beach.

The councilman went ahead to say that the most demoralizing and dehumanizing about being unhoused is to see the sun setting, but you have a place to go and sleep. Bonin is opposed to the ordinance because it only tells the unhoused where they can’t sleep but doesn’t resolve their primary problem: providing a place to sleep. He feels that the ordinance would only be favorable if it told people the locations not to sleep and offered an alternative.

Nithya Raman and Mike Bonin opposed the ordinance because it restricts camping in designated locations without providing alternatives, which is the same as criminalizing poverty because most people without homes are the poor.

Council Members who Supported the New Law and Why

On the other hand, twelve council members supported the law, including Joe Buscaino, Bob Blumenfield, Paul Krekorian, Nury Martinez, Monica Rodriguez, Curren Price, John Lee, Mitch O'Farrell, Paul Koretz, Kelvin De Leon, Marqueece Harris-Dawson and Mark Ridley-Thomas. They supported the motion because they felt the new law balances the people without homes with the need for clean, safe, and accessible public places. These councilmen opined that although the issue of unhoused in the city is a hot political issue, banning camping by the unhoused in designated areas is a sign to the LA voters that they are responding to their needs by keeping sidewalks clean and accessible.

Also, they feel that the fourteen-day notice provided in the city report is adequate for the unhoused individuals camping in these areas to leave voluntarily, limiting the involvement of law enforcement authorities.

Blumenfield, the councilman for West San Fernando Valley District, opined during the Wednesday meeting that he supports the new motion because he wants the unhoused encampments in his district to be made off-limits despite having the lowest number of individuals without homes. The councilman said that the encampments he needs to ban in his community are mainly underpasses under the 101 freeway. These are the routes that link the residential areas with shops and restaurants. Blumenfield claims that despite his district having the fewest number of unhoused persons, it’s still a significant issue because residents complained about having to walk in roadways to avoid the encampments because of the insecurity issue.

However, if these camps are removed, people will no longer have to walk in traffic because the dangerous corridors in the encampments will be no more. Further, more efforts will serve people by providing more shelter and housing, promoting a safer and cleaner society.

According to the city report, putting up the signs in the earmarked locations will cost an average of $2m because the 54 designated places only represent less than half of the sites considered.

Paul Koretz also called out Nithya Raman for not taking action against the mushrooming unhoused campsites in her district and arguing that supporting the new resolution criminalizes poverty. According to Koretz, the law itself doesn't outlaw the unhoused. Instead, it establishes a framework to keep designated public places safe, clean, and passable. He said he would vote yes for the motion and closely monitor the implementation process.

Another councilman who supported the ordinance is Mitch O’Farrell, whose office played a critical role in clearing the Echo Park Encampment. Mitch says that the new rule will regulate these shared public places while compassionately providing housing for the unhoused. Further, Mitch stated that the new law provides guidelines on the usage of pathways in the city, consequently establishing clear pathways to permanent housing for the people without homes.

Councilman Joe Buscaino, in support of the motion, opined that by enacting the new law, fire hydrants would be accessible, sidewalks would be passable, and driveways and commercial establishment structures entrances would be clear. Joe felt that the motion was a massive step in the right direction. Still, it wasn’t enough because other stringent laws were needed to ensure unhoused individuals could not camp on sidewalks after being offered alternative housing by the government.

Again, Joe responded to his colleagues who had dissenting opinions on the resolution by claiming that nothing provided in the new anti-camping laws prohibits or restricts the council members from identifying sensitive encampment sites that need to be removed.

Advocates on Both Sides of the Ordinance

One of the advocates supporting the new ordinance was Stuart Waldman, the head Valley Industry and Commerce Association business group. According to Stuart, families shouldn’t walk in traffic or roadways to avoid encampments on sidewalks. Instead, these sites should be cleared so that people can walk safely down any Los Angeles street. Also, Stuart felt that people living in sidewalks blocked the disabled and made recreational places dirty and unusable, but the crisis will be fixed if they are cleared under the new rules. Businesses won’t have to deal with trashed storefronts and clean public parks.

Another supporter of the ordinance, the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce, said that small businesses struggle amid the pandemic. Allowing the unhoused to camp in front of these stores that are already experiencing the economic effects of the pandemic makes even the situation worse. However, removing these camps from these places will offer monetary relief to the small businesses as they will be easy to access by the customers. Again, the disabled will find it easy to move around because the sidewalks will be passable.

Angelinos were also invited to the council meeting for public participation and accused the council of sweeping the unhoused under the rug by enacting the resolution. They felt that the law wouldn’t address the problem because people can’t afford houses because of the lack of affordable housing and increased luxury housing. They suggested that the best way to tackle the problem is not through the ordinance but by increasing affordable housing development.

Also opposed to the ordinance was Shayla Myers, the senior lawyer for the Legal Aid Foundation of Los Angeles. This organization works with people without homes and low-income households. Shayla opined that enacting the ordinance prohibiting sleeping, sitting, or lying on sidewalks will not resolve the unhoused crisis in LA. The attorney goes ahead to compare passing the law the same as “kicking the can down the road” because it only tells the unhoused where they can’t sleep but doesn’t provide an alternative out of the encampment.

Ricci Sergienko also told the council before the Wednesday vote that the aim was to criminalize people without houses by saying that being poor is criminal. Ricci went ahead to say that the law paints the unhoused as a threat to the public and children, whereas the lack of affordable housing was the actual threat to public health and safety. 

Reasons for the New Ordinance

Since the onset of the pandemic, the Centers for Disease Control advised the city to stop cleanups of encampments for the unhoused, which led to the expansion of these sites, resulting in complaints from those living in the neighborhoods. These cases were witnessed in Echo Park Lake and Venice Boardwalk.

However, with the lifting of the existing Covid-19 restriction, the city council is trying to develop measures to control unhoused camping in the city. One of these efforts has been the ban on camping in streets and sidewalks.

Community Encampment Response Team

Clearing the encampments won’t be a simple task now that the law has been adopted. At Green knight Security, we will work closely with the concerned authorities in these designated areas to help remove the unhoused from these places. Our team of trained security personnel will help remove the people without homes from the locations where camping has been banned. Further, we will conduct patrols on these areas using our security patrol team to ensure that those removed don’t return to ensure the success of the new measures.

Again, we will engage those on the site with the outreach team to review why they haven’t moved and found a solution. Also, our on-site security team, both uniformed and plainclothes, will remain on-site to ensure that no one sleeps, sits, or lies in the banned areas. Additionally, the officers will file reports on the events in these designated areas daily. That way, whenever the client, the city council, requires writing on the progress, we can quickly provide a copy of the report. These reports will help monitor the progress of the new rules and make changes where necessary to improve the efficiency of the measures.

Find the Right Security Services and Training Near Me 

The new rules banning unhoused encampments in Los Angeles won’t be easy because many agencies are involved. At Green Knight Security, we offer on-site security personnel and patrol services in the encampment areas to be cleared and ensure that the process goes smoothly. For more questions about our security services, call 844-457-8326 for a free consultation.