Photos: Before & After Homeless Camps Leave Venice Boardwalk

VENICE, CA — It didn't happen overnight. The homeless crisis, intensified by the pandemic and subsequent economic crisis, led to an estimated 200 people living in tents at the Venice boardwalk, just steps from the sand.

After months of unsafe conditions for both housed and unhoused people, including a series of fires, shootings, attacks and missing people, neighbors pleaded with local leaders for help.

What emerged was a political battle over who would manage the emergency and who would offer compassion to people living on the streets and struggling in poverty. Now, more than 211 people are housed following the Encampment to Home initiative. The effort brought outreach teams from St. Joseph Center to tents and encampments lining Ocean Front Walk. These teams offered people housing, working block by block to help a population of unhoused people.

Now, the tents and encampments that once lined Ocean Front Walk have gone, many are removed. Much of the trash was taken away. It's the first step in a series of moves to offer people in Los Angeles permanent housing.

For Los Angeles City Councilmember Mike Bonin, it was a myth that people are hesitant to accept housing, but people hold out for "real housing" and don't want to be placed in temporary shelter. He also said it was important to understand people have a variety of needs and desires, and people should be given a range of options, flexibility and patience.

"The other thing I think was really very important was to come into this with no judgment and to respect the dignity and the agency of every person who was living on the streets and to give them the ability to direct what it is they want and they need," Bonin said.

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- City News Service and Patch Editor Nicole Charky contributed to this report.

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