On Friday morning, all that remained of the sprawling homeless encampment on Manhattan Place was a giant pile of trash and items former occupants had used to make their home.
The encampment, on a vacant lot in Koreatown, existed for months. It was home to roughly 10 people and drew repeated complaints from neighbors in nearby apartments and condos. They said the homeless neighbors there were noisy, aggressive and posed a fire risk when they broke into an adjacent streetlight to steal power from the grid. Some said they saw what appeared to be drug deals take place on site.
City officials said the fact the lot is private property delayed cleanup efforts, but they finally were able to coordinate a plan with the lot’s owner.
On Thursday, police officers told remaining encampment residents they had to leave and workers started to clean the site. On Friday, a gray-and-red backhoe moved piles of trash and other items into a large blue dumpster.
Nancy Herrera, 48, lives across the street from the encampment and said she was ecstatic it was finally being removed. She said the location often smelled and occupants kept her up at night with noise. She said someone once jumped onto her brother’s car as he was driving down the street.
“Right now, we are very happy,” Herrera said, before saying the lot’s owner needs to take action to ensure people don’t return to live there.
The owner, Elk Development, did not immediately return an email seeking comment.
Leo Daube, a spokesman for L.A. City Councilmember Katy Yaroslavsky, who represents the area, said the city offered encampment residents services and housing and the lot’s owner hired a hauler to remove debris.
Zach Seidl, a spokesman for Mayor Karen Bass, said eight people were moved into interim housing and the mayor is “committed to bringing Angelenos inside as we continue efforts to decrease homelessness citywide.”
The Koreatown property owners, Seidl said, “have now taken steps to manage the lot and we will continue to hold them accountable for maintenance and safety of this site.”
Before it was removed, residents say the squalid encampment had developed into a community. They dragged in a pickleball net, where people would volley from time to time. Residents grilled hamburgers and chicken on two barbecues. There was a small garden of tomatoes, onions and cannabis.
On Friday, as the backhoe put the remnants of that life into a dumpster, Andres Reyes sat across the street on the steps of an apartment building.
Reyes said he lived at the encampment for roughly four months, in a tent he shared with a friend, but left about a week ago when he heard the cleanup was coming. He said he hadn’t received an offer of housing.
He spent the previous night on the steps and asked for compassion from nearby residents.
He said he and his fellow encampment residents “might have been a little noisy,” but he wasn’t aware of any drug deals and “we never harassed the neighbors.”
“I feel like everything was taken from us,” Reyes said as the sound of the backhoe loomed in the background. “I lost a lot of memories.”
The post A Koreatown homeless encampment, with pickleball court and garden, is removed following complaints appeared first on Los Angeles Times.
