Los Angeles to close Echo Park Lake, clear park's homeless residents

City officials looking for solutions for the homeless in Echo Park

A big battle is brewing in Echo Park between the homeless and the city. Homeowners and other residents are caught in the middle saying they're afraid to use the park.

LOS ANGELES - Activists gathered at Echo Park Lake Wednesday morning ahead of the city's plans to close the park where well more than a hundred people have taken up residence.

Los Angeles City Councilman Mitch O'Farrell's communications director Tony Arranaga told City News Service that the city is closing the park to repair more than $500,000 in damage.

Arranaga would not confirm the date of the closure, but the Los Angeles Times reported that "a source with direct knowledge of the process" said the encampments would be cleared on Thursday and the park would be closed by fences for renovations.

The Centers For Disease Control and Prevention's guidelines during the pandemic call for homeless encampments to be left alone.

"Clearing encampments can cause people to disperse throughout the community and break connections with service providers. This increases the potential for infectious disease spread," the guidelines state.

O' Farrell told reporters during an unrelated news conference Tuesday that the city will follow all CDC guidelines and house all residents of the park who have lived there since January, but he did not provide details about what type of housing would be provided or when it would happen. He added that the city previously housed more than 100 of the park's residents.

O'Farrell's office said late Wednesday morning that all 120 residents were moved to transitional housing.

Advocates for the unhoused community, including the organizations' Echo Park Street Watch, Ground Game L.A., and the Los Angeles Community Action Network, met park at 7 a.m. to support the park's residents and attempt to withstand the order.

The group plans to hold a 24-hour vigil" to seek citywide cooperation and support in coming days to stop the shut down of L.A.'s largest self-run homeless haven."

The park's community -- which has created a vegetable garden, working showers and a kitchen -- has been praised by activists as a self-run, diverse community of housed and unhoused residents of the neighborhood.

"Echo Park Lake, situated on Tongva Land, has been a haven of this community since its development and should remain a free and accessible place for members of this community who need it for solace, leisure or survival," Zarinah Williams, president of the Echo Park Neighborhood Council, said in a statement to City News Service.

Homeless community braces for LA to clear Echo Park

"We do not feel that $500,000 in restorative landscaping is a priority endeavor given layered consequences of displacement and criminalization of our residents."

Several people called in to Tuesday's City Council meeting to speak about the move to close the park. Sachin Medhekar, organizing committee member for the SELAH Neighborhood Homeless Coalition, also called into the meeting to oppose the city's plan to close the park and clear the encampments.

"I applaud the efforts of (the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority) to place folks into (Project Roomkey) sites, but as we all know, eligibility for the program is limited," he said.

"I'm urging you to not displace the over 100 folks that reside at the lake, especially during this ongoing pandemic and to instead focus on connecting folks with a variety of services and housing options they deserve."

A woman who identified herself as a resident of the Echo Park neighborhood said she supported the clearing of the park and closure for renovations. "I personally have not visited the park in over a year because it doesn't feel sanitary or safe," she said. "I also worry that the $45 million investment the city made to rehabilitate the park is being wasted."

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