For a time last year, a patch of sidewalk outside the Hotel Silver Lake meant everything to Charles McKay. It was the only spot where he knew he could pitch his tent safely — where other unhoused people didn’t steal from him, housed people didn’t hassle him, and he had regular access to meals.
“You do not find that every day,” McKay says. “And if you got it, you want to keep it.”
So last year, when the city posted notice that they were going to clear the encampment where he was staying, he didn’t know where to go.
“I don’t know what the city is thinking we’re going to do, like we can just jump up and just go somewhere else,” he says.
On the day of the cleanup, sanitation workers arrived early in the morning. McKay says they gave him 15 minutes to gather his belongings and leave, and that he tried to save what he could, but the crew trashed basically everything he owned, including prescription medicine. He also says he was not offered shelter, so he moved to the side of the 101 freeway.
“It’s kinda wicked,” he says. “That’s the worst part of being homeless for me – it’s the sweeps.”
LA City Councilmember Hugo Soto-Martínez represents this area and campaigned against clearing encampments this way. A spokesperson for his office said they weren’t aware of the incident and are investigating.
Unhoused people call these cleanups “encampment sweeps.” For years, people living on the street have complained that the city trashes property people need to survive — from food to Narcan, the overdose reversal medicine — without offering shelter or housing.
During the pandemic, opposition to sweeps coalesced into a movement. In 2020, “there were so many orgs with really high membership rates, defending against sweeps, monitoring sweeps, checking in with people afterward,” says Kris Rehl, a mutual aid organizer with LA Street Care.
But “the movement reached a peak with the eviction at Echo Park Lake,” says Rehl, when in 2021 hundreds of people squared off with police, trying in vain to stop the city from clearing an encampment there.
Unhoused people and activists took a stand against encampment cleanups at a homeless camp at Echo Park Lake in 2021. Photo by Jack Ross.
“A lot of the people who were involved in fighting against sweeps have burned out,” Rehl says. “A lot of people have stepped away from movement work as they had to go back into the office for work.”
Since the pandemic, the city has expanded its shelter stock and opened new permanent supportive housing. But as the housing landscape has changed, encampment sweeps have stayed the same.
LA City Councilmember John Lee, who conducts regular sweeps in his northwest San Fernando Valley district, says not sweeping would have “political ramifications” for him. If he can’t keep sidewalks clear, voters might not let him move forward with his other priorities in office.
In his district, residents have fought affordable housing construction for decades. Lee says he convinced them to let him build hundreds of new units in part by promising to crack down on camping.
“My community has said yes to a lot of housing,” says Lee. “I had zero housing when I took office. And so I made a promise to those people, because I believe housing is part of the solution. If you allow me to build these in your neighborhood, then I will make sure to also enforce the laws that go around it.”
Eventually, the city did place McKay in a motel room, but the sweeps took a toll on him.
He’s still mourning some of the things he lost that day – like pictures of his daughter and grandchildren. McKay hasn’t seen his daughter in years when she sent him the photographs.
“She had forgave me for not being in her life,” he says. “Sent me [pictures] of her children, who I’ve never really physically met. [That] hurts, man.”