Image of the Week: LA Raids Homeless Camp

by Shannon Moriarty · 2009-05-31 08:54:00 UTC
Topics:

Garbage, animal carcasses, baby toys, and syringes. This is what law enforcement officials found in a hidden enclave beneath an LA freeway where roughly 30 homeless individuals had been living, undetected, for years. 

The remnants of the hidden encampment provide an uncomfortable sense of how unsanitary and downright tragic the conditions of living on - or beneath - the street can be. Here's an excerpt from the LA Times story: 

On Wednesday, as a team of deputies and Caltrans workers stood by in protective face masks, a circular saw began cutting away one of the metal doors along the north-facing wall, deemed the safest entrance.

Guns drawn, deputies stepped through the opening into the darkness. Flashlight beams picked up mounds of scrap metal, bicycle parts, knives, syringes and an M-16 ammo clip. They found thick sections of concrete wall had been chiseled away to create little rooms. They found a man sleeping near the rotting carcass of what appeared to be a cat.

Sheriff's Deputy Paul Archambault, who was leading the sweep, found a ladder and climbed up to inspect a series of overhead crawl spaces.

He pointed his flashlight.

"It looks like a baby was living in here. It looks like they had a nursery or something. There's a bunch of rattles and toys and stuff," he said. "I think they put the babies up there to keep them away from the rats."

While it's always disturbing to read about individuals being displaced from their "home," however unpleasant it sounds, this encampment sounds especially dangerous and unsanitary. Still, this raid will only force these people to move - undetected - to another dangerous and unpleasant living arrangement. The cycle continues. 

 

Shannon Moriarty has worked in various homeless shelters and service organizations around the country. She is a graduate student studying housing and urban policy at Tufts University.
PREVIOUS STORY:
CA to become first state with no public assistance?
NEXT STORY:
Is the NCAA Putting Student Athletes at Risk?

COMMENTS (5)

    Comment Policy

    · All fields are required to comment.

    [X]

    Comments on Change.org are meant for further exploration and evaluation of the campaign on Change.org. To that end, we welcome constructive comments. However, we reserve the right to delete comments which, as determined solely in our discretion: (1) are offensive, abusive, or off-topic; (2) include content solely intended to personally attack the campaign creator, (3) are designed to subvert or hijack comment threads rather than contribute to them; and/or (4) violate our terms of service and/or privacy policy. Repeat offenders may be permanently removed from the site at our discretion. Please also be advised that: (A) we do not actively curate and/or monitor in any manner whatsoever the comments made on the Change.org platform, and (B) the creator of each campaign on Change.org may remove any comment at her/his/its discretion.