Backlash as Los Angeles plans rollback of homeless camping enforcement

Furious Los Angeles residents are warning the city that a decision to remove a successful homeless-enforcement tool will bring back the very encampments, fires, drugs and filth that officials spent years trying to clear.The City Council voted 10-3 Tuesday to strip anti-camping protections from areas around Hollywood, Silver Lake and Echo Park at the urging of socialist Councilman Hugo Soto-Martínez.But critics say the policy change amounts to a dangerous experiment — particularly at places like historic Barnsdall Art Park, a senior center and Echo Park Lake, where residents say they have already seen the consequences of unchecked encampments.Jordan Miralles, a 27-year-old graphic designer who grew up around Echo Park and regularly practices his trumpet by the lake, remembers the bad days before the cleanup.“You couldn’t walk through the park.There was garbage everywhere,” he said.

“They just reconstructed the park.Why would Los Angeles pour money into restoring public spaces only to watch conditions deteriorate again?”The sites had been protected under Section 41.18 of the Los Angeles Municipal Code, which allows the city to ban people from sitting, sleeping, lying down or storing belongings at specifically designated public locations.But Soto-Martínez, who has long opposed the law, successfully pushed the council to remove the restrictions in his District 13, arguing they merely shuffle homeless people from block to block.“In most cases, it makes it much harder for us to help them because they lose their belongings, they get fined, and many times they are arrested,” he claimed.Residents and park advocates say the rollback risks reviving the dangerous, sprawling encampments that overwhelmed some Los Angeles public spaces during the city’s homelessness crisis.Among the locations losing protection is Barnsdall Art Park, home to Frank Lloyd Wright’s Hollyhock House – Los Angeles’ only UNESCO World Heritage Site.Barnsdall Art Park Foundation...