Sweeper, no sweeping!
On June 28 the Supreme Court made it legal for cities to fine and arrest homeless people for camping on the street. Governor Gavin Newsom took the cue, and threatened to strip funding from cities and counties that aren’t rounding up the homeless hard enough. Newsom even personally threw away homeless people’s possessions under an overpass in LA County. But he praised LA Mayor Karen Bass’ approach of sweeping the homeless into shelters, so Dare to Struggle decided to find out why.
What is a sweep? For the homeless, it means being woken up and told you have a matter of minutes to move everything you own, and anything that’s left will be destroyed.
Most of Skid Row can be swept every two weeks. But you never know when they’re actually going to come or not, so people are kept on edge. Many don’t realize sweeps are coming until the cops roll up on them.
According to 56.11, the city is supposed to hold anything “of value” left behind for 90 days. But it’s a bureaucratic nightmare to get it back, so almost nothing gets retrieved. Most swept property is tossed immediately because LASAN workers consider it “an immediate threat to the health or safety of the public”— meaning they think it’s too dirty. This “trash” includes people’s documents, medicine, family photos, or loved ones’ ashes.
The rich rob the poor, crowd them in slums, and use the inevitable filth as an excuse to further dispossess and traumatize people. Anyone who resists is arrested. One of our activists was recently detained by police for allegedly ducking the yellow tape to retrieve a homeless man’s medication. We refuse to be intimidated by this repression, and we will continue to expose and fight back against these sweeps.
OUT OF THE FRYING PAN, INTO THE FIRE
But aren’t the sweeps a humane way to connect the “unhoused” with housing and take them out of unsafe conditions? LAHSA spends some $24 million a year on outreach, but we’ve repeatedly seen them show up to sweeps after everybody has been forced out, and not offer services to a single person. They are only there to give these brutal police raids a veneer of legitimacy.
The lucky few who do get connected to temporary housing don’t have it much better. Residents of the La Jolla and the Madison, two Skid Row Single Room Occupancy (SRO) hotels, invited us inside to expose the kind of places where Mayor Bass wants to pack the homeless. In the La Jolla hotel, we saw tiny rooms overcrowded with residents and their belongings. Mold spreads unchecked and causes chronic breathing problems, which one resident blamed for the death of his neighbor. At least 4 people have died in the La Jolla alone in the last 4 years. In the Madison, the elevator constantly breaks down, stranding elderly and disabled residents. These SROs are tinderboxes: the 3rd floor of the La Jolla had a massive fire a year ago, and the Madison has constant fires. While we were inside we found exposed wires and burn marks on shower curtains, doors, and walls. These hotels are a death trap, a slowly-unfolding tragedy happening behind closed doors.
How is any of this legal? Can’t we sue? The truth is, much of this oppression is perfectly legal, and violations of law by the government or the landlords against the homeless are rarely corrected and never punished. Despite years of lawsuits, the Madison still hasn’t fixed the elevator, and now they’re even tricking people into signing waivers without a lawyer present. The homeless actually won a lawsuit against the city, which was ordered to stop immediately destroying the homeless’ belongings during sweeps – but the police raids and destruction continues. We can never beat them at their own game and get real justice in a court of law. If we want this fixed we need to use the only resource we have: the oppressed and dispossessed people of this city who have a shared interest in fighting back against these injustices.
Karen Bass says that homelessness is a problem and is too visible – well, good! Let’s make ourselves an even bigger ‘problem’ for the rich and powerful, and force them to take action. Let’s refuse to be swept under the rug or bought off and expose this human catastrophe for all the world to see.
WANNA BE A PART OF OUR MOVEMENT?
- SPEAK OUT!
September 7th at 5 pm, Madison Hotel, 423 E 7th St. - JOIN OUR WEEKLY MEETINGS
Saturdays at 2 pm, Gladys Park, 808 E 6th St. - JOIN SKID ROW STANDS UP!
Contact us to get involved. - SHARE on social media, PRINT and distribute to spread the word!
Dare to Struggle 