City Council Votes For Voluntary Approach To Encampment Cleanups

VENICE, CA — As the pressure mounts to take an active response to the growing number of homeless people across Los Angeles and the Westside, the Los Angeles City Council Tuesday voted to develop a voluntary approach to homeless encampment cleanups.

RELATED: Venice Cleanup Focuses On Helping Neighbors In Pandemic

The service-based approach will replace the city's mandatory cleanups of homeless encampments and give people experiencing homelessness a chance to clean up their space without fear of losing their belongings. The goal is to help unhoused residents clean up their space and give them access to restrooms, water and have spot cleaning, without risk of people lose their personal belongings, Diaz said. People can monitor their items without getting displaced or having their items thrown away.

"In Venice, we're doing something completely different," organizer Steve Diaz told Patch. "We're coming with public health alternatives that community helps clean up, helps to educate folks on the block so that they're prepared as sanitation comes."

The motion authored by council members Nithya Raman and Mike Bonin calls for the Bureau of Sanitation, working with the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority, to create standards to work with unhoused people and provide hygiene services.

Raman and Bonin said the city should institute a voluntary program that offers cleanup services and the removal of trash and hazardous waste without threats of confiscation, as advocated by the Services Not Sweeps Coalition. The program launched in March and was piloted in Council District 11, which includes Venice. Community cleanups have already been underway near 3rd and Rose avenues.

These enhanced hygiene and sanitation services include:

• scheduled, regular services
• offer services, including trash and bulky item pickups
• add designated areas for trash, waste for disposal and removal
• use community partners, ambassadors to help with outreach and facilitating cleanups
• provide mobile showers, bathrooms, COVID-19 testing, vaccinations, tent exchange and distribution of food and water
• provide shade structures or easy-ups to help unhoused people relocate with their belongings during cleanups
• provide accomodations for people with diasabilites
• hire unhoused Angelenos to keep areas clean between cleanup days
• plan to not involved law enforcement

The Council members voted unanimously to approve the motion, however, Councilman Joe Buscaino was the sole dissenter with an amendment to:

• have the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority consult with the Bureau of Sanitation on standards for street engagement and hygiene services
• to instruct the City Administrative Officer and the Chief Legislative Analyst to develop a budget and staffing proposal to implement new standards for street engagement and hygiene and to work with LAHSA to develop a budget and staffing proposal for outreach to prepare unhoused residents for the Bureau of Sanitation's cleanings in advance and during the cleanings.

Raman and Bonin said in the motion that Los Angeles policy should be guided by the Hippocratic oath, "first, do not harm."

They contrasted Los Angeles' policy to conduct forced cleanups, during which unhoused residents must take down their tents and move their belongings, to the CDC's guidelines, which state: "If individual housing options are not available, allow people who are living unsheltered or in encampments to remain where they are. Clearing encampments can cause people to disperse throughout the community and break connections with service providers. This increases the potential for infectious disease spread."

Through the pilot in Venice, L.A. Sanitation and Environment workers provide voluntary service during a regular schedule, similar to how sanitation services are provided to residential customers.

Raman said the pilot program proves that there doesn't have to be a conflict between Angelenos' desire for clean streets and the rights of unhoused people.

"When our unhoused neighbors are given the same sanitation services as our housed ones, and engaged with collaboratively, we can build a system that benefits all Angelenos," she said in a statement to City News Service after introducing the motion on Jan. 12. "I am proud to co-present a motion that takes this philosophy citywide."

The motion's authors noted that their highest priority is to provide a suitable housing alternative to sidewalk encampments, but in the meantime and amid the COVID-19 pandemic, they first want mandatory cleanups to stop.

"In the middle of a deadly pandemic, we need to take every necessary step to protect public health. That means giving unhoused people a safe place to stay — and refraining from displacing them when we fail to provide them a place to stay," Bonin said in January.

"The city keeps trying to clean encampments through a program that forces people out of their tents and confiscates their belongings," he said. "Instead, the city should humanely provide a voluntary sanitation program that offers a service, just as we do to housed people."

Several Los Angeles neighborhood councils voiced support for the motion, including the councils of Atwater Village, Arroyo Seco, Del Rey, Eagle Rock, East Hollywood, Echo Park, Empowerment Congress West Area, Greater Cypress Park, Greater Valley Glen, Hollywood Hills West, NoHo and Mid-City. The Los Feliz Neighborhood Council said it would support the motion if the cleanups were mandatory, not voluntary.

Bonin has proposed to add more shelters, including "tiny homes" and "safe camping" sites in areas such as Marina del Rey and Pacific Palisades.

Additional shelters, including Bridge housing, have been added to the Westside in Venice near Pacific and Sunset Avenue, along with the VA site in West L.A. and on Mitchell Avenue in Mar Vista. Other sites and interim or seasonal housing have been added in the region. The city has also purchased hotel rooms with plans to convert spaces to housing, including the Ramada Inn on Washington Boulevard in Marina del Rey, which is part of Project Roomkey. The Cadillac Hotel in Venice and 9250 Airport Blvd. in Westchester have also been purchased by the city for Project Roomkey. Several emergency shelters have opened in Venice, West Los Angeles and Westchester.

Permanent supportive housing has been proposed at the following sites:

• 11950 W. Missouri, West Los Angeles
• 2454 S. Barry Ave., West Los Angeles
• 3233 S. Thatcher Ave., Venice
• 8333 Airport Blvd., Westchester
• 720 Rose Ave., Venice
• 2469 Lincoln Blvd., Venice
• Veterans Administration Campus, Brentwood
• Venice Boulevard and Pacific Avenue, Venice
• 12901 Venice Blvd., Mar Vista

Additional supportive housing has also been recently added:

• 11976 Culver Blvd., Del Rey
• 11368 Beach Ave., Del Rey
• 11738 Courtleigh Dr., Del Rey

The plan aims to help eliminate encampments along the boardwalk area in Venice and focus on outreach. Homeless encampments near the handball courts in Venice were cleared this month.

Bonin also wants to add more living options for unhoused people near LAX.

"I am asking the city to work with Los Angeles World Airports (LAWA) to identify and fund an airport-owned site the city can use, pending FAA approval, for safe parking, or tiny homes; to evaluate and identify funding for a temporary shelter for homeless women in vacant space adjacent to my office inside the West LA Municipal Building on Corinth Avenue, and to work with my office and willing potential sellers to purchase more hotels or motels with additional Project Homekey funds that may become available July 1, 2021," he said. "Finally, I'm instructing the Housing Authority of the City of Los Angeles to work with my office and willing property owners to enter into master lease agreements for hotel rooms or apartment units to be used for homeless housing."

Homeless encampments have led to unsafe living conditions throughout the pandemic — and before — for both housed and unhoused people on the Westside. A string of fires at the boardwalk in Venice, in alleys and behind homes, at Penmar Golf Course, and most recently at the Ballona Wetlands, has led residents to ask leaders for help.

"The status quo on our streets is unacceptable and I am fighting to put quick, sensible, and cost-effective solutions into place as soon as possible so people can get out of sidewalk encampments and on the pathway to permanent housing," Bonin said.

- City News Service and Patch Editor Nicole Charky contributed to this report.

SEE MORE:

• Dog Killed In Bungalow Fire In Venice; Arson Suspected
• Homeless Shelters Proposed Across The Westside
• 'People Literally Dying On Our Streets' As Homeless Crisis Grows
• Investigators Reveal Likely Cause Of Fire At Ballona Wetlands
• Burned-Out Bus Removed After Months Of Fires, Violence In Venice
• Photos: Venice Fire Spread From Homeless Encampments To Building
• One Person Killed In Homeless Encampment Fire