City Evicts Unhoused Residents of Echo Park
Echo Park, a neighborhood situated in between Hollywood and Downtown Los Angeles, formerly provided a community for those unhoused in the area's namesake park. David Busch-Lilly is a 65-year-old homeless resident who was formerly a part of the Echo Park community and a city bus mechanic. Busch-Lilly said he joined the encampment recently after about 20 years of sleeping on streets and sidewalks in Santa Monica and L.A.
"Since this past September, I've been going on a little sojourn across L.A. and I kept circling back to Echo Park," Busch-Lilly said. "Other than Westchester Park, Echo Park was the only park in L.A. where homeless people had such a beautiful space that they created."
Community activist David Busch-Lilly is no longer able to live on the grounds of Echo Park, Calif., a community that once was his home before he was removed by the city of Los Angeles on March 25. Busch-Lilly continues to fight for the unhoused community to live there, as seen on Thursday, May 5. (Kevin Tidmore | The Corsair)
On March 28, the area's city councilman, Mitch O'Farrell, led a forceful eviction of all the unhoused residents from Echo Park using the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD). The city gave those from the commune the option to move with Project Roomkey, a statewide program established in March 2020 as a response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
As a part of Project Roomkey, L.A. County secured a number of hotel rooms for unhoused individuals. The California Department of Social Services described the initiative’s purpose as providing “non-congregate shelter options for people experiencing homelessness," as well as minimizing strain on the health care system.
Another option the city offers to unhoused residents is a government-run tent community in a parking lot on Madison Avenue off Beverly Boulevard. The Rampart Village encampment, which costs the county $2,600 per unhoused person monthly, is less than three miles from Echo Park.
One choice the city eliminated was allowing residents to stay in or return to the Echo Park community. Hundreds of activists in the area, supporting the rights of the unhoused to live in the park, gathered at the location on March 24-26 to protest O’Farrell’s actions. Some groups, including the tenant's rights coalition of organizers called Street Watch L.A., helped plan the protests and have assisted Echo Park residents in the past.
Busch-Lilly said their previous assistance to the community, prior to organizing the protests, included bringing portable batteries to charge phones, tents, and tarps, as well as providing health services for individual needs.
Issac Scher, a political researcher and freelance reporter, attended the protests because of his opposition to gentrification. Gentrification is when a poor area in a city experiences an influx of middle- and upper-class residents moving to the location. Because of this migration new businesses open and property value rises, and this usually displaces the area's former working-class inhabitants.
Scher describes gentrification as a form of economic racism. It is "an economic stacked deck against these poor residents...[it] displaces people but also simultaneously raises rent prices," he said.
Scher protested on Glendale Boulevard, next to the lake that sits in the middle of Echo Park. On the front line, at about 10:30 p.m., he and other protesters met excessive police force. "The cop in front of me was by far the most violent on the line," Scher said. "The second or third swing with his baton was quite literally a baseball bat swing, two-handed...and he broke my arm."
Along with Scher’s account of excessive force, the LAPD reports they arrested 182 people, including members of the media, from Echo Park.
As of May 4, there are no more unhoused residents in Echo Park. The city continues to allocate funds to initiatives like Project Roomkey and the Madison Ave parking lot encampment.
