Tempers flared Thursday as city crews moved in to clear a large homeless encampment alongside the San Diego (405) Freeway in Van Nuys, with protesters gathering at the site and some confronting authorities as they tried to move into the area.
Video from the scene showed several protesters being physically pushed away from the entry to the encampment as city crews arrived and began the operation, which was being conducted as part of Mayor Karen Bass’ Inside Safe program that seeks to move people off the streets and into housing.
Several Los Angeles Police Department units were at the scene in the 15000 block of Oxnard Street, near a public storage facility next to the northbound 405. The LAPD confirmed officer were on the scene beginning around 5:15 a.m.
The encampment included dozens of tents, along with piles of trash that were being cleared as part of the operation with the help of front-loaders and dump trucks. The encampment was the scene of a sizeable fire that broke out last November.
It was unclear how many people were living in the encampment, which is known as “The Compound.”
As the Inside Safe operation continued, protesters continued to gather nearby, demanding to know what would happen to the homeless people being moved out of the location.
The mayor’s office insisted that Inside Safe is a voluntary program offering housing and services to the homeless as a way to get them off the streets and into safer and more supportive living situations.
Mayoral spokesman Zach Seidl told Channel 5 there is “a lot of misinformation out there about Inside Safe.”
According to the mayor’s office, operations like the one carried out Thursday morning were a primary reason for two straight years, as reflected in the annual Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority point-in-time homeless count.
According to broadcast reports, the same encampment has been the target of previous cleanup operations dating back as long as 2019, but the tents continued to return.