- We learned yesterday that the area where Monica,
the woman who you've met through Invisible People
who lost her legs three months ago,
is being sweeped.
That means the RVs are being towed in this area.
Los Angeles lifted the towing ban on May 17th.
These people have no place to go.
Monica is literally just getting food stamps.
She's getting no other support
except for the USC street medicine team
that are coming here and helping her.
These people have no place to go.
Sweeps are horrible.
(somber music)
We don't know where Monica and Katrina are.
Their RV was once there
and now it's gone.
(somber music continued)
You're having to move your RV.
- Yeah, like once every two weeks, three weeks now like,
just pick up and go and at the drop of a dime.
Like we're supposed to have a way
to get everybody's RV outta here.
Trying to get all of our stuff outta here
and go where, you know?
Like, where do they expect us to go, you know?
- Yeah.
- They don't offer us any sort of like, substitute or for...
you know? - Right.
There's no alternative. They're not helping you.
They just move you and then-
- Yeah, they tell us that we gotta go
and we can't come back.
And otherwise, if we don't leave
they're gonna impound our stuff.
You know, they're gonna-
- Help us move.
- How long have you been living in an RV?
- For like two years now.
- What happened?
- With the COVID stuff, you know.
Everything just fell apart, you know.
So it's been hard getting back on, you know.
Getting back on our feet but...
And then with all this, it's like, it's never ending.
Getting tired of moving forward, you know?
(somber music continued)
- Where are you going?
- We're moving down the bridge on Broadway.
They had us telling us to move last minute.
Sorry. - Yeah.
- Last minute move.
So we're getting just these two drivers that are helping us,
which are gonna help us just move everybody.
And last minute, you know?
- Yeah. And you really no place to go the city-
- No place to go, which these are empty streets as it is.
And you know like, we're not taking up space or anything.
We're not interfering with anybody. We're not, you know?
- Yeah.
- This is last minute, you know?
- The city just pushes you around.
- Yeah, basically. Yeah, that's what they do.
- Yeah.
- And we have to move our stuff all the time
and it's very stressful.
And half of the time like,
they're handicapped people, they don't have help.
You know?
- Are you guys offering services?
(indistinct speech from worker)
What services are you offering?
(indistinct speech from worker)
Oh. Okay.
I just asked a Lossa worker
what services they're offering homeless people.
And she offered a number for me to call.
And the truth is there's not enough services
and there's no housing to help people.
And I've been here on this block
several times in the last week
and services aren't being offered.
(somber music)
All around Los Angeles and many communities in America,
streets are lined with RVs. Many of them broken down.
When a person loses their job and is facing eviction.
They may have some savings
and may go into a hotel for a little while.
Then they jump on Craigslist and buy an RV
because the next step is on the streets homelessness.
The people that were living here
don't have any place else to go.
Their shelters are often horrible places.
And to be honest, there's not enough shelter beds
and shelters do not end homelessness.
Isn't it great that sweeps provide a bathroom
for police officers, Lossa and Sanitation?
But the city of Los Angeles cannot provide bathrooms
for the tens of thousands of homeless people?
Homeless people don't wanna live in filth either.
The reason the trash builds up is there's no trash pickup.
These are simple solutions
the city could provide with the 70 million dollars
that they use to displace people.
The city could provide trash pickup and dumpsters
and porta potties.
Or, wait for it,
the city could work to get people out of homelessness.
But no, they would rather displace people.
It makes no sense
that cities around America
are criminalizing homelessness.
But it's getting worse.
(ambient music)
Where are you gonna go?
- I'm taking it all way to the end.
Take these things off this property.
- But you don't have any place to go, right?
- To tell you the truth, I ain't leaving.
- What?
- I'm gonna tell you the truth, I ain't leaving.
- You ain't leaving?
- No. I'm gonna go right here and come right back.
I started to throw all this shit over that wall.
Then dump it back.
- They kicked people out of there,
so now they're on the corner.
And once the Sanitation and police leave, they'll go back.
And in two weeks, we'll do this over and over and over.
And homelessness continues to grow.
Criminalization and sweeps are part of the reason
homelessness continues to grow.
(ambient music continued)
- I didn't think they would...
I thought they were gonna take everything,
but like, the cans.
And-
- And they're taking everything?
- Yeah, tents and all.
But I should have known. They did it in other places.
- Yeah.
I just wasn't thinking straight.
- Michael says he's going into Project Roomkey.
The Lossa
is offering him
a hotel.
I've tried to confirm with the Lossa worker here
but she wouldn't talk to me.
Project Roomkey is a hotel program.
There's a lot of good with Project Roomkey,
but also a lot of bad.
People do get inside with a private shower
and their own space,
but there's some really funky rules.
They can't go visit other people,
there's a ridiculous curfew.
Some people like it, some people don't.
But...
Michael kind of won the lottery
because he's the only one out of all these people
that is being offered any kind of support.
And probably because he's disabled.
(dog barking)
(ambient piano)
(police officer laughing)
(ambient piano continued)
14 Sanitation workers.
That doesn't include the Sanitation workers
that are sitting in the truck
and the one in the front.
There's three police officers here that I've seen.
There's parking enforcement at either end.
There's been a few Lossa employees.
I didn't see them engage with homeless people.
I just saw them kind of monitoring.
So add all this up
and you as a taxpayer pay huge money for this.
And I get it. You want homeless people out of sight.
So do I.
So does most people.
But all these homeless people
are gonna come right back here.
Criminalization and sweeps do nothing,
nothing to solve homelessness.
It just pushes people to another area and they come back,
and it pushes people to another area and they come back.
And you as a taxpayer in Los Angeles
pay 70 million dollars for this every year.
(ambient music)