On a foggy December morning, Los Angeles County’s 71st Pathway Home action—and the last of 2025—brought 21 individuals who had lived in dilapidated RVs along the Broadway corridor into interim housing. Now safely indoors, they can access resources and support to continue their journey to permanent housing.
Outreach workers from LAHSA and County multi-disciplinary teams, partnering with the Pathway Home team, had spent months reaching out to and establishing trust with people living unsheltered along a stretch of South Broadway near Compton Blvd. in the County’s second Supervisorial District before they moved indoors.
“Finally, the community can get their streets back and most importantly, people in RVs can get some place more comfortable,” said Max Estrada, manager of Access and Engagement for LAHSA.
Some encampment residents were more ready than others.
The morning started out rough for Christine, who sat on the sidewalk outside the RV belonging to her mother and father. She was surrounded by her possessions, some of them packed, others strewn about near her own tent. Deciding what to do with her aging dog was weighing on her. She had one cat in tow, but her kitten had seemingly vanished. She had also been arguing with her parents. Overwhelmed, she began sobbing.
Her friend, Matthew, watched from a stoop behind her. “I think she’s scared of change. She doesn’t trust nobody, either,” he said sympathetically.
“I promise you, Christine, we are going to take care of you,” said outreach worker Abel Romero. “I just want you to try this.”
Her parents, Wesley and Barbara, both 67, left the RV and put their belongings in a car driven by an outreach worker, ready for a trip out of RV living and into a safe, clean motel room.
Meanwhile, Matthew, 32, was also ready to go. Still recuperating from a bad motorcycle accident in late November that resulted in surgery and a metal leg brace, he hobbled from one place to another. His father, Larry, 69, had joined him in the RV after he lost a job at an aerospace company and eventually couldn’t make payments on his apartment.
They each had the same idea of what they would do once they arrived at the motel:
“Shower,” said Larry.
“Same,” said Matthew. “After him. I take longer showers. It takes forever because of my leg.”
Soon, they were packed up and driven off as well.
Just Christine was left, sitting on the sidewalk. She still couldn’t find the kitten and feared he was hiding somewhere under her parents’ RV. Workers preparing to move or dismantle the vehicle her parents gave up had barely jostled the RV when the kitten bolted out from under it onto the sidewalk, sending Christine in pursuit. The kitten scampered down a gated walkway between two buildings and Christine patiently waited at one end.
Still, she refused to go to the motel. Outreach workers decided to give her some time, telling her they would come back later.
In Athens Park, Pathway Home workers set up tables to confer with people before they went to the motels. A group sat in chairs waiting for their check-ins.
Karen, 67, said she had spent 10 years in an RV. She and her son had lost their home after Karen’s mother died. They went from one cheap motel to another until they decided to buy an RV they found for sale in a newspaper. “It was nice when we got it. Not so nice now,” she said.
Eventually, she was ready to leave it. “I got tired of the rats being in the motor homes,” she said.
Then when the move became a reality, she said she barely had time to get ready. “We were up all night packing,” she said of herself and her son, Mike, 50. She sat with her two dogs, a Pomeranian and an Apple Head Chihuahua.
Larry
Larry stands in his new interim housing unit.“I really didn’t want to go,” Mike confided about the move.
“I was like that, too,” said Matthew, explaining he turned down the offer at first.
Mike can’t explain why he didn’t want to go.
“It was too much of a change, right?” Matthew offered.
“You get set in your ways, you know?” said his father, Larry.
Like most everyone, Mike was looking forward to a shower. And his mother Karen’s plan: “Go to sleep for two days straight.”
As people began to filter out of Athens Park on their way to motels, another person suddenly showed up at the park: Christine.
Outreach workers had gone back to the site where they left her.
“I said, ‘Don’t give up this opportunity because you’re unhappy with your parents,’” said Ulises Garcia, a LAHSA HOST supervisor. “I said ‘I need a yes or no right now.’”
Christine’s answer was yes.
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On this operation, Pathway Home partnered with LAHSA, the LA Sheriff’s Department Homeless Outreach Services Team, the LA County Department of Public Works, HOPICS, and the office of LA County Supervisor Holly J. Mitchell, among other teams.
This operation was the 71st overall Pathway Home encampment resolution since the Los Angeles County Homeless Initiative launched the program in August 2023. More than 1,800 Los Angeles County residents have come off the streets through Pathway Home. Of those, more than 450 are now permanently housed. These operations have also removed more than 1,000 RVs from the streets.