Silver Lake businesses fed up by homeless trash problem explodes over past year
SILVER LAKE, Calif. - A business owner and manager are calling on the city of Los Angeles to address a homeless and trash pile-up problem they said exploded over the last year.
Imagine a pile of garbage, then multiply it by three. That was how large the mound of trash was Wednesday night near Council Street Beverly Boulevard.
The overflow of garbage was on the sidewalk right in front of Hansol Financial & Insurance Marketing Inc.
Owner, Jimmy Wang and his family opened their business 45 years ago and moved to Silver Lake 15 years ago.
Wang told reporter Leah Uko over the past year, homeless people had taken over parts of the area.
“You see the blue tarp it’s tide to the utility, the handle? So they’ll tie that to maybe the cart and build a shelter.”
His biggest concern was safety for himself and his employees.
“There’s some that are mentally ill so we try to not provoke them just for our own safety,” he continued. “I feel really stressed. I get worried. I try to be respectful and try to treat them with dignity, but then again it’s difficult.”
The pile included broken glass bottles, plastic bags filled with trash, rotting food and used needles.
All of this was attracting roaches and countless flies that were creeping into the business.
Manager of Eastside Camera LA, Dan Thomas said at times the trash spills onto the street and prevents employees from finding close places to park.
“It looked like a pile of trash and one of our employees was actually parking a car and, you know, almost ran into—almost ran the person over because they didn’t realize somebody was in there,” Thomas explained.
One apartment tenant told FOX 11 a woman living in the alley tried to stab her last week.
A while ago, Thomas recorded a man walking with a grocery cart filled with trash he set on fire.
“We’ve had trash bins lit on fire. We’ve had shopping carts lit on fire, said Wang.
Cars are not able to drive through the alley behind Wang’s business.
A few days after the city cleaned hi the alleyway a new encampment was set up.
Trash flooded a section of the alley. But a garbage bin was nearly empty.
Business owners said over the course of the past year they placed several calls to the city.
The Public Works Department cleaned up the area a few times.
Last week, crews posted a sign on a pole notifying people the area was flagged for another clean-up.
But Wang hoped the city would be more proactive and do routine clean ups instead of waiting for people to submit formal requests.
“It’s just a cat and mouse game they come and they move 100 yards over and that’s how it goes for them.”
He wanted a permanent solution.
“I mean you have one school here, one school over there. So morning and afternoons you see kids walking by.”
FOX 11 spoke with Elena Stern in the Department of Public Works.
She was looking into whether or not requests had been sent and if crews would be cleaning the area this week.