A global human rights organization blasted the city of Los Angeles Wednesday in an extensive report that accused authorities of publicly calling for the production of more housing to bring people off the streets, while instead criminalizing homelessness as the primary way of coping with the problem.
“Arrests and citations as the direct mode of criminalization have decreased substantially over the past several years in Los Angeles,” according to a report released Wednesday by Human Rights Watch. “But authorities use the threat of arrest to support the relentless taking and destruction of unhoused people’s property through sanitation `sweeps’ and people’s removal from certain public spaces. Criminalization has simply taken a different primary form, though punitive criminal enforcement always looms.”
According to the report, the United States “has been treating housing primarily as a commodity” rather than an “internationally protected human right.” The report particularly calls out Los Angeles, “where the monetary value of property has risen to extreme heights while wages at the lower end of the economic spectrum have stagnated for decades.” And as a result, “houselessness has exploded into public view.”
In response to the report, the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority said in a statement that homelessness in L.A. County is a humanitarian crisis. The organization noted it is focused on ending unsheltered homelessness via “evidence-based, trauma-informed approaches that move away from criminalization.”
“In partnership with the city and county of Los Angeles, we are already implementing culturally tailored encampment resolution efforts with promising results. We are encouraged by the reduction in unsheltered homelessness of 10.4% in the city and 5.1% in the county, noted in the region’s most recent Homeless Count,” LAHSA said in a statement. “Most importantly, these reductions corresponded with increases in sheltered homelessness and a record number of permanent housing placements, indicating that we are on the right track in adhering to a best practice approach.”
“LAHSA also acknowledges and is committed to addressing the disproportionate representation of Black and Latino Angelenos impacted by homelessness. LAHSA is not involved when enforcement occurs to preserve the relationship-building efforts of the staff, which is a critical step to bringing people inside,” the statement continued.
The report outlined a series of statistics, with the authors writing that on average, more than six unhoused people die daily in Los Angeles County. According to the report, nearly 60% of renters in Los Angeles and 38% of homeowners are “cost-burdened,” meaning they spend more than 30% of their income for housing, while nearly half of that group pay more than 50% of their income for housing.
“Los Angeles invests heavily in criminalizing unhoused people, which causes human suffering and makes many unhoused people disappear from sight, while doing nothing to solve houselessness,” according to the report. “Criminalization is primarily accomplished by the Los Angeles Police Department through arrests, citations, and other coercive actions, and by the Sanitation Department through destruction of encampments and the property of unhoused people.”
According to the report, between 2016 and 2022, “38% of all LAPD arrests and citations combined were of unhoused people, including nearly 100% of all citations and over 42 percent of all misdemeanor arrests.”
“Criminalization effectively destroys lives and property based on race and economic class,” according to the report. “It is a set of policies that prioritizes the needs and values of the wealthy, property owners, and business elites, at the expense of the rights of people living in poverty to an adequate standard of living. As a consequence of historical and present policies and practices that discriminate against Black and other BIPOC people, these groups receive the brunt of criminalization.”
The report contends that while Black residents represent less than 8% of the overall population of Los Angeles, Black people represent 33% of the homeless population.
Mayor Karen Bass’ office did not respond to a request for comment as of Wednesday afternoon.
Hugh Esten, director of communications for City Council President Paul Krekorian, said that while Krekorian has not seen the report, he rejects the characterization of the city’s policies as “criminalizing homelessness.”
“We do not prohibit camping on the streets of Los Angeles; we enforce restrictions on the time, place and manner of street camping to ensure public access to the public right of way, and to protect the safety of the housed and unhoused alike,” Esten said in an email.
“Since 2020 we have built interim shelter and permanent supportive housing for those experiencing homelessness. As a result, over the last year we have seen more than a ten percent reduction in unsheltered homelessness in the city of Los Angeles,” he continued.