LA delays decision on plan to stop homeless encampment sweeps during emergencies<\/p>\n
Elected leaders in Los Angeles have decided that more deliberation is needed before they agree to a plan that would pause the city\u2019s homeless encampment sweeps during environmental disasters.<\/p>\n
Elected leaders in Los Angeles have decided that more deliberation is needed before they agree to a plan that would pause the city\u2019s homeless encampment sweeps<\/a> during environmental disasters.<\/p>\n The L.A. City Council was scheduled to take up a proposal Wednesday that would have directed the city\u2019s Sanitation Bureau to suspend encampment sweeps in neighborhoods affected by environmental emergencies declared by city or state officials.<\/p>\n But at the start of the meeting, Councilmember Ysabel Jurado introduced an amendment to the proposal. Instead of ordering the bureau to make the change, her new language instructed the bureau to \u201creport back on options\u201d for suspending sweeps during emergencies.<\/p>\n All 15 councilmembers voted to approve that amended proposal, which sets no due date for the bureau\u2019s report.<\/p>\n Learn the ins and outs behind L.A.’s housing crisis.<\/p>\n Sign up for Building Your Block, a seven-issue newsletter course from LAist that explains the obstacles around housing development in L.A. and what you can do to make things better.<\/p>\n How the proposal came about<\/p>\n Jurado represents Boyle Heights, the neighborhood that was recently choked with noxious smoke and rotting food odor as a result of the Lineage cold storage warehouse fire<\/a>. She introduced the proposal to suspend encampments sweeps during emergencies shortly after that fire broke out in June.<\/p>\n In her original motion<\/a>, Jurado wrote that the city\u2019s regular encampment sweeps \u201cserve important sanitation and public health purposes,\u201d but can harm unhoused people who are trying to take whatever refuge they can from nearby hazards.<\/p>\n \u201cDuring periods of extreme heat, poor air quality, smoke, hazardous debris or other environmental emergencies, requiring unsheltered residents to remain outdoors while relocating their belongings may increase their exposure to dangerous conditions,\u201d Jurado wrote.<\/p>\n The City Council could still implement this change after receiving the report they\u2019ve now requested from the Sanitation Bureau, though the timing remains unclear.<\/p>\n If the changes are implemented, they could affect thousands of people across the city. According to the region\u2019s latest homeless count<\/a>, the city of L.A. has more than 45,000 people experiencing homelessness on any given night. About 60% of them are unsheltered.<\/p>\n Sweeps can harm physical and mental health<\/p>\n The city\u2019s encampment sweeps typically require unhoused people to dismantle their tents or makeshift shelters, pack up their belongings and relocate so that sanitation crews can clean sidewalks and other public areas.<\/p>\n Service providers have said sweeps can cause them to lose touch with the unhoused people they\u2019re trying to help. Public health researchers have found that sweeps, which happen at least monthly for about a third of L.A.\u2019s unhoused residents, can worsen unhoused people\u2019s physical and mental health<\/a>.<\/p>\n