City Clears 17 Homeless Camps

For the past two weeks, L.A. city crews have worked in the parkland below Via de las Olas and along Temescal Canyon cleaning out the homeless encampments and their accompanying accumulated trash. ”Meth mountain’ is what the homeless call the area from PCH up towards the Via bluffs,’ said LAPD Senior Lead Officer Chris Ragsdale. ‘It got that name because there are a number of meth-amphetamine users who have lived there.’ ‘Quite a bit of planning was involved,’ said Chief Park Ranger Albert Torres. The effort included three park rangers, a maintenance crew, two supervisors, LAPD policemen, Department of Sanitation, and the L.A. Fire Department, along with support from Councilman Bill Rosendahl’s office and the neighborhood prosecutor. A large truck with a front loader was brought in from the Sanitation Department to hold the 15 dump-truck loads of trash that had been cleaned out with the aid of two skip loaders. ‘We located 17 encampments that we cleaned out,’ Ragsdale said. ‘Most of them were occupied by single individuals.’ Before the cleanup got under way, the Fire Department took members of the Recreation and Parks Department up in a helicopter to survey the area and spot campsites. ‘What looks like a small camp could be a very large camp with all the bulky items that a person has accumulated,’ said Torres. ‘It’s illegal to lodge and camp in the park. Even though individuals are camping illegally, we are required to notify them that a cleaning effort is taking place and the date. A week before we started we attached posters to campsites about the cleanup and made contact with all the people we saw.’ During the cleanup, eight individuals were cited for illegal camping. Three were ticketed for alcohol violations. Two individuals, once they saw the police and cleanup activity in the bluffs, darted across PCH and were given tickets for jaywalking. There was one felony arrest because an individual had two felony warrants: one for burglary and one for meth-amphetamine possession. The same individual also had three misdemeanor warrants, including petty theft and camping/alcohol violations. An additional individual was taken in for a mental evaluation because he was determined to be a danger to himself and others. ‘The main thing is to break down the camps,’ Ragsdale said. ‘It’s been a couple of years since the area was last cleaned out. We’re also planning to come back with the Forestry Department to trim trees and shrubs in the area.’ ‘We all work together,’ Torres said. ‘It’s a coordination between all the departments.’ Ragsdale is currently speaking with officials from Caltrans about a cleanup of homeless encampments behind the 16 ft. wall that was erected between Potrero and Chautauqua after the 1994 Northridge earthquake to stop debris from falling onto PCH. A fire started by a campfire behind the wall burned up the hillside towards Corona Del Mar in November. ‘Our effort is to keep the campsites from happening again, so we plan to patrol more often,’ Torres said. ‘Residents can help us by reporting any activity on parkland.’ Contact: (323) 913-7390. Asked what has happened to the homeless persons who were dislocated by the cleanup, Ragsdale told the Palisadian-Post: ‘Some have moved towards Malibu and Santa Monica, or have just remained in the area, minus their camps. I expect we’ll get a lot of calls from people wondering, ‘Where did all the homeless suddenly come from?”