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 president Daniel Gerwin told The California Post the historic property needs to be treated differently because Hollyhock House was often threatened by fires before the anti-camping restrictions were imposed.

“This park needs to be treated differently than other public spaces in Los Angeles,” he said.

The foundation warned in an August 17 letter that before 41.18 restrictions were imposed in 2021, Barnsdall battled “serious encampment issues” on Hollywood Boulevard, including blocked access and fires.

Millions of taxpayer and city dollars have been spent restoring and maintaining the historic property, the foundation said, while the city departments responsible for protecting it already lack the resources to absorb additional safety and security problems.

Other Barnsdall supporters painted an even more disturbing picture.

“We have and continue to quench multiple fires, clean excrement, repair graffiti on the Frank Lloyd Wright buildings and fix devastating damage to the precious 100-year-old olive grove,” Claudia Glenn Barasch wrote in a public comment opposing the rollback.

Meanwhile, residents near the Las Palmas Senior Citizen Center in Hollywood say removing its 41.18 protection risks bringing back the shocking conditions they endured during the pandemic.

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Hollywood resident Ryan Bonnell said encampments around the center and surrounding sidewalks had been plagued by violence, drug use and dealing, fires, rodents, noise and rowdy behavior.

“Over the past year, 41.18 has provided a critically needed tool to enforce anti-camping at the Las Palmas Senior Center,” Bonnell wrote, saying the restriction helped preserve the facility as “a safe gathering spot for senior citizens.”

The fears are particularly raw in Echo Park, where the rollback removes anti-camping protections after Angelenos already watched the neighborhood become ground zero in the city’s homelessness crisis.

By early 2021, a sprawling homeless encampment had swallowed much of Echo Park Lake, with tents and makeshift structures surrounding the lake and forcing the city to temporarily close the landmark park while it was cleared.

The backlash has also exploded online, with the r/LosAngeles thread bombarded with residents furious about the rollback.

“Why?!! Echo Park is finally family friendly and finally a nice park to go to,” the original poster wrote.

Councilmembers Traci Park, Imelda Padilla and Monica Rodriguez were the only three councilmembers to vote against the repeal.

Park told The Post the council is dismantling one of the few tools her Westside district has successfully used to stop encampments from thriving — a protection she says should be available to everyone in Los Angeles.

“These protections need to be expanded citywide,” Park said. “We should not be rolling back commonplace regulations that keep kids and vulnerable people safe around our daycares, libraries and local parks.”

The fight is also crashing directly into Los Angeles’ mayoral race.

Mayor Karen Bass supports using 41.18 as an enforcement tool, while Councilwoman Nithya Raman, who is challenging Bass in November, has repeatedly opposed expanding the law to new locations and voted Tuesday to repeal the restrictions in Soto-Martínez’s district.

When The Post last checked, signs marking the locations as restricted under 41.18 were still standing.