Residents in a Studio City neighborhood are worried for their safety, saying a nearby homeless encampment has brought an onslaught of crime and lewd activity to the area.
Neighbors said they’ve been subjected to public nudity, flashing, sexual activity, drug use, threatening language and more on a daily basis.
Merryn Landry, who lives in an apartment building on Bluffside Drive near busy Ventura Boulevard, said her unit is just feet away from all kinds of unwelcome activity and interaction.
“I am feeling like I am trapped and I’m trying to ask for help in the right course and no one’s paying attention to me,” she told KTLA’s Chris Wolfe.
Landry said several neighbors, many of them women, have also reported being harassed by men living in the encampment.
“A lot of just very indecent things,” she said. “[Remarks such as] what they want to do to our bodies or about our outfits. It’s a very graphic [verbal] attack on me and my body.”
Landry feels frightened to step out of her home, worried the next encounter could turn violent. “I can be overpowered very quickly,” she said.
Neighbors in the area have complained and reported the incidents to police and local leaders, but said they’ve received no solid responses on a possible solution.
Another neighbor, identified only as Chris out of safety concerns, said he and his wife try to avoid the alley where the encampment is located at all costs.
He recently saw a man “disrobing, clearly touching himself in public and kids were walking by,” he said. In another incident, he called the police after seeing a young woman at the encampment who was screaming and covered in blood. Despite the police response, he said nothing was solved.
“Police came and asked these people to move, but they didn’t wait long enough either, to make sure they moved,” he said. “So they pretended to move and then just stayed.”
Residents are frustrated and said they won’t stop pressuring government leaders and law enforcement officials to resolve the problem.
“I don’t want to get hurt for something to be done,” Landry said. “I don’t want that to be the circumstance.”
L.A. City Councilmember Nithya Raman, who represents the area, said in a statement that her office is “dedicated to permanently resolving encampments as quickly as possible, and getting people inside as the only way to avoid pushing the impacts of homelessness onto another set of neighbors. We fully support LAPD enforcing the law around any criminal activity that might be associated with this encampment.”
Neighbors said they hope the encampment is dismantled soon before a future incident potentially escalates into violence.
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