The last two strongholds of a homeless camp on Echo Park Lake were arrested on Friday morning, looking almost like a saga of more than a year that saw up to 200 people living in one of the most beautiful and beloved parks in the city, building what they said was a better community for those who had no home in Los Angeles.
Organizers of the Ground Game LA group, which defends the homeless, said they were told by a Los Angeles Police Department official that two park residents, Ayman Ahmed and David Busch-Lilly, had been taken into custody, the that the LAPD subsequently confirmed. A Ground Game organizer later said the two were released.
Early in the morning, Ahmed and Busch-Lilly said over the phone that they believed they were the only people who were still there, with a third person entering and leaving the park, which was closed to the media.
The decision to close the park and clean the camp sparked protests on Wednesday and Thursday in the Parque Echo area. Protesters, journalists and legal observers were arrested after the police issued a dispersion order, blocked in the crowd. Authorities said 182 people were arrested for not having dispersed.
City officials posted notices on Wednesday night stating that the park would be closed the following night so that teams could make repairs. Most of the people who lived in the vast camp, which included a communal kitchen and garden, left at nightfall on Thursday. Camp residents have been warned that they could be arrested for remaining after 10:30 pm on Thursday.
“We were fully prepared and expected to be arrested last night,” Ahmed said in a telephone interview ahead of Friday’s arrests. “So, we’re just in a state of limbo now. This is our home, so we won’t be leaving until they kick us out. “
Workers at the non-profit organization Urban Alchemy had walked through the park, asking people if they wanted to go to hotel rooms. Since starting to make more intensive outreach in the park in February, the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority said that by Friday, more than 180 people in the park had received some form of shelter, including 138 in the Project program. Roomkey providing Hotel Rooms. Ground Game LA provided hotel rooms for 10 other people, according to co-founder Ashley Bennett.
Others spent the night on the streets. Zach Coughlin, who left Camp Echo Park on Thursday loaded with a heavy backpack and wheeled luggage, said he spent the night outside East Town Hall.
He and Karissa DeAngelis said they had been in a hotel room through Project Roomkey before, but had to leave after their room was damaged by storm water. Another group offered to help them get an apartment, but so far they said they have not found a landlord willing to rent a property that they can afford.
They declined an offer to be moved to a new hotel room through Project Roomkey because they said that the social worker said they would have to “start all over again” in the housing process if they did.
“I have our house on my back,” said Coughlin on Thursday. “I think we’re going to go back to what we did before.”
Ahmed said Friday morning that he refused to be “evicted from our legal shelter”, arguing that in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, he and other campers created something better for the homeless than Project Roomkey or others shelter options offered by the city.
“What we build is one of the solutions for homeless people,” he said. “The city simply refuses to acknowledge that.”
Before the park was surrounded, the lakefront camp had grown to nearly 200 tents and became a polarizing issue among Echo Park residents, some of whom joined the homeless in protest, others applauded the decision to close the park, complaining about garbage and criminal activity in a precious piece of green space. Councilman Mitch O’Farrell said this week that the park has become “a chaotic and dangerous environment for all users”.
Speaking to reporters at a vaccination center in southern Los Angeles on Friday morning, Mayor Eric Garcetti framed the operation this week to close Echo Park as a success, saying the city, along with LAHSA, was able to shelter many people who lived on the lake and give them vaccines, medicines, meals and more.
“This is the largest housing transition in a camp in the history of the city,” said Garcetti.
He reiterated the comments he made earlier in the week that the park had become “incredibly dangerous”. On Wednesday, when asked about the park, he pointed out that a Times reporter witnessed a knife fight in the park between two homeless people.
“We cannot wait for someone else to die before we act,” said Garcetti.
However, he said he was not trying to “characterize everything as a success” about the crackdown in the park, which was not officially announced until 24 hours before it occurred and included the arrest of several protesters and several reporters outside the park. .
Times staff writers Kevin Rector and Dakota Smith contributed to this report.