LA neighbors furious after city removes “anti-camping” zones

Residents in Los Angeles’ El Sereno neighborhood are demanding action over a homeless encampment that they say is blocking sidewalks, making it harder for elderly people and families to get around, and leaving them frustrated with a city response they believe asks them to tolerate conditions that should not be considered normal.

FOX 11 Los Angeles reporter Christina Gonzalez visited the encampment and spoke with both nearby residents and the people living there, one day after the Los Angeles City Council voted to remove a dozen anti-camping enforcement zones.

The dispute has become a small but telling example of the larger argument over homelessness in Los Angeles: how much pressure should the city place on people living on the street, and how long should surrounding neighborhoods be expected to wait while outreach workers try to persuade them to move voluntarily?

Residents Say The Sidewalk Is No Longer Usable

Gonzalez showed a sprawling encampment along Fithian Avenue in El Sereno, where tents and belongings had taken up a large portion of the sidewalk.

She said the encampment was slightly smaller by the time FOX 11 went live because she had spoken with the people staying there about the problem of blocking pedestrian access.

For some neighbors, however, the disruption had already become a serious daily problem.

One woman using a walker told Gonzalez that getting around the area was “very difficult,” while a person accompanying her said the combination of the blocked sidewalk and extreme heat made things even harder.

Another resident said her children attend school nearby and that she no longer feels comfortable walking them past the encampment.

She also said she worries about safety when walking her dog.

Those complaints are not simply about appearance or inconvenience.

When a public sidewalk becomes difficult or impossible to use, people with mobility problems are often the first to feel the consequences, and that makes accessibility one of the strongest arguments being raised by the neighborhood.

People Living There Say They Do Not Want To Go To A Shelter

Gonzalez also spoke directly with a woman living at the encampment who identified herself as Ladera.

Ladera said she was staying there with her son and acknowledged that housing or shelter assistance had been offered.

When Gonzalez asked whether she wanted to accept that option, Ladera said she did not want to go.

The exchange became more complicated when Ladera described an unusual relationship with her son, at one point saying she had been dating him and was no longer doing so.

Later in the report, Gonzalez said she had spoken with the woman at greater length and believed there were clear mental-health issues involved.

She also said Ladera had other possible places to go, including family and friends nearby, but that the relationship between her and her son was not accepted by relatives.

Gonzalez suggested that their resistance to shelter may partly come from fear that they would be separated.

That detail makes the situation much more complicated than simply saying the pair have been offered help and refused it.

People can reject shelter for many reasons, but when mental-health concerns and family dynamics are involved, persuasion may take far longer than neighbors are willing to tolerate.

Neighbors Say City Officials Told Them To “Get Used To It”

One of the biggest sources of anger was an email residents said they received from Council District 14’s homeless outreach team.

According to Gonzalez, the message said services had been offered to a man named Daniel, but there was only so much the outreach team could do.

Residents were also told that Daniel was born and raised in El Sereno, went to school there, and had friends and family in the neighborhood, making it a community he knew and felt comfortable in.

Some neighbors interpreted that message as being told they simply had to accept the encampment.

One resident pushed back strongly against that idea.

“Just because someone’s from here doesn’t mean I…” she said before adding that she was also from the neighborhood and asking whether that meant she did not deserve safety there.

Her point was simple: being connected to a neighborhood does not automatically settle the question of whether someone should be allowed to block public space indefinitely.

That is a fair concern, especially when the space in question is a sidewalk meant to be shared by everyone.

Council Member Says The Goal Is Still To Clear The Site

Councilmember Ysabel Jurado, whose district includes the area, disputed the idea that her office wants residents to accept the encampment permanently.

In a statement read by Gonzalez, Jurado said El Sereno residents “deserve public spaces that are safe, clean, and accessible.”

She also said her office was not asking anyone to simply get used to the encampment.

According to Jurado, the goal is to help the two people living there move indoors and then return the public space to the community.

The disagreement is over how to get there.

Jurado’s office said a lasting solution requires building trust with the people living outside and convincing them to move rather than forcing them out.

Some residents clearly do not believe that approach is moving fast enough.

That tension is at the center of many homelessness debates in Los Angeles: outreach workers often argue that forced removals without housing simply move the problem from one block to another, while residents living beside encampments say they cannot be expected to absorb the consequences for months or years.

City Council Vote Adds To The Frustration

The timing of the El Sereno dispute has made the issue even more politically charged.

Gonzalez reported that the Los Angeles City Council had just voted to remove a dozen anti-camping enforcement zones.

Residents who were already struggling with the Fithian Avenue encampment saw that decision as another sign that the city was backing away from enforcement.

The vote does not mean every encampment in Los Angeles is automatically protected from removal, but it added to the perception among some neighbors that enforcement tools are shrinking while visible street homelessness remains unresolved.

For people living near the site, that policy debate is no longer abstract.

They are dealing with blocked sidewalks, concerns about walking children to school and questions about whether elderly residents can safely move through the neighborhood.

At the same time, the people living in the encampment are clearly dealing with their own serious problems and have resisted the help offered to them.

Both realities can exist at once.

El Sereno Reflects A Much Larger Los Angeles Problem

Gonzalez closed her report by describing the Fithian Avenue encampment as one of many examples of a much larger situation playing out across Los Angeles.

That may be the most important part of the story.

The dispute is not simply about two people living on one sidewalk.

It is about what happens when outreach-based homelessness policy moves more slowly than the patience of the surrounding community.

Residents want the sidewalk cleared and their sense of safety restored.

City officials say they want the same end result but believe it has to come through trust-building and voluntary movement into housing.

The people living in the encampment, meanwhile, have so far rejected shelter.

There is no easy answer in that triangle of competing needs, but leaving public spaces blocked indefinitely is not much of a solution either.

For El Sereno residents, the immediate question is no longer whether the city has a homelessness strategy on paper, but when that strategy will produce a visible result outside their front doors.