Just 7 percent of the people in Los Angeles’s Echo Park encampment found permanent housing after it was cleared. Almost half are missing. Seven are dead. That’s not a failure of homelessness policy; it’s an example of the system working exactly as intended:
Officers wielded batons, launched foam bullets at point-blank range, tackled members of the crowd, and injured at least a dozen people. Two were hospitalized. “They were protesting so peacefully,” Otzoy recalled in a UCLA report on the event. “And what did the police do? Sent their hundreds and hundreds in, arresting them, putting them in jail, shooting at them.” In the morning, the last of the residents — including Otzoy and Ahmed — awoke to find themselves completely fenced inside the park with a chain-link enclosure. In an Instagram livestream, they compared their surroundings to an open-air prison. After one last night, those who remained were threatened with arrest. Otzoy walked out, carrying what possessions he could. Ahmed was removed in handcuffs. In all, 182 people were arrested and 16 journalists detained. The entire operation cost $2 million.
Get the Longreads Weekly Email