The lull has ended. The inevitability has arrived.
These are among the sentiments that Echo Park community members expressed today after city officials announced a sweep of homeless encampments at the park could occur as soon as Thursday, March 25.
Several hundred people have been camping in Echo Park during the COVID-19 pandemic. They say that law enforcement has been more lenient about overnight stays because of health and safety concerns related to the virus.
As L.A. County moves into the red tier status, the grace period is over.
Earlier this week, a spokesman for City Councilman Mitch O’Farrell — who represents Echo Park and the community around it — announced that the homeless camps will be cleared from the park.
The park itself will be fenced off and closed as the City conducts $600,000 of renovations to fixtures such as the playground, boathouse and bridge.
On March 24, O’Farrell tweeted that more than 120 residents have already accepted offers to move into hotel rooms. But, not everyone is choosing to go while others say they have yet to be offered a room.
“There are no good alternatives,” said David Busch-Lilly, who has been living in a tent in the park for more than a year. He says he refused an offer to move into a hotel room. “I don’t want to jump in line in front of a suffering person who needs that room more.”
Busch-Lilly, 65, has been homeless for more than two decades since he lost his job as a city bus mechanic. He considers himself a leader in the L.A. homeless community and cites a record of previous activism to call attention to the city’s homeless crisis including chaining himself to the Flamingo Hotel in Santa Monica during the El Niño rains of 1998 and working with local officials to have bathroom monitors patrol public restrooms after dark in Venice Beach.
This week, Busch-Lilly is hunger striking to protest the decision to displace people from the park without proposing a long-term solution. “I’d rather go without food and get hauled off to jail than abandon this place and this cause.”
Councilman O’Farrell has not released a plan to address homelessness after the hotel room rentals expire in three to six months.
While some campers have left, others like Busch-Lilly have chosen to stay. Still others say they have not been offered any alternatives.
Jeff Sovine has been camping in Echo Park since last March. He said he would move to a hotel room if he were offered one, but no one has approached him with that option.
“It’s like a game of cat and mouse,” Sovine said. “If I get kicked out of the park, I’m just going to move down the street.”
Another park camper, Bobby (who asked not to share his last name), said the difference between the park and a hotel room is too extreme for him to adapt to.
“I feel feral now and free,” he said. “In the hotels, we are subjected to prison rules. We can’t have visitors, there’s a curfew, and we are limited to two backpacks of possessions.”
Bobby says he moved into a hotel once before when a public official offered him a room, but it didn’t work out. “I left in a heartbeat to escape the absolute lockdown,” he said.
His case exemplifies the policy problem behind O’Farrell’s latest proposal.
The hotel rooms are not a sustainable solution that addresses homelessness. People like Bobby often revert to camping — and drinking — in parks and on sidewalks once rentals lapse.
Activist Amanda Darouie who volunteers with Echo Park Rise Up stated the dilemma poignantly. “We clearly have an issue, and moving each other around like sheep is not a proper way to solve it.”
Demonstrations at the park will continue Thursday, March 25.