L.A. bus stop benches are designed to discourage sleeping. But one individual found a workaround Monday as he stretched out on the roof of a Brentwood bus stop shelter. He also managed to get a shopping cart filled with his belongings atop the structure.
Pete Brown, a spokesman for City Councilmember Traci Park, whose district encompasses much of the Westside, including Brentwood, said Park’s office routinely receives reports about street hazards.
“This one just happened to be vertical,” he said.
It’s not uncommon to find homeless people around the bus shelter on the southwest corner of South Barrington Avenue and Wilshire Boulevard. But the sight of a man sleeping atop the shelter next to a shopping cart caught the attention of onlookers, some of whom pulled out their phones to take pictures, as first reported by KTLA.
It was not clear why the man, whose name was not immediately available, climbed on top of the structure or how long he was there for.
Brown said city sanitation workers and police officers arrived on Monday afternoon to address the situation, which posed a safety threat not only to the man but also passersby because of the shopping cart.
The man was cooperative, and was not cited or detained by Los Angeles Police Department officers, according to Brown. He agreed to come down from the roof and discard some of the items he had put on top of the bus stop shelter. He turned down homeless services.
Brown, who said Park’s office learned of the situation through local media, rather than a city report, encouraged Los Angeles city residents to file a 311 report and contact their local council member if they are concerned about an encampment. If there is an immediate threat or danger, such as a fire or person with a weapon, contact 911.
L.A. has one of the largest homeless populations of any major U.S. city, according to the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority. The number of unhoused people citywide appears to have gone up compared to the previous year, The Times has reported — but an accounting glitch made it hard to know by how much.
Earlier this year, L.A. sanitation staff closed a South Los Angeles manhole where people were said to be living and nearly welded it shut with a person still inside.
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