A Los Angeles County Pathway Home operation moved 22 people who had been living outside along the Los Angeles River into safe interim housing, where they can access supportive services and other resources to begin the process of moving into permanent housing.
They left makeshift homes in the riverbed and on brushy hillsides where the river runs through Maywood, Bell, Southgate, and Cudahy for a chance to remake their lives.
Leading up to the June 30th operation, outreach workers spent weeks engaging people and preparing them for a move. But when PATH mental health specialist Kim Spencer-Suarez and program manager Joe Comer arrived on the east side of the river they discovered that a couple of people they needed to pick up — Aunner and Mario — had vanished from their camping area.
Kim and Joe got back in their van and headed to the west side of the river. No luck there. An LA County Sheriff’s Deputy on the HOST team helping with the move told them the men were still in the neighborhood somewhere.
The PATH workers also learned that the men had left when a cleaning crew had shown up to clear out encampment debris. Union Pacific Railroad had planned a clean-up in areas under their jurisdiction, but it took place earlier than expected, leaving outreach workers in some cases scrambling to find people.
“You have a plan and then things don’t align perfectly, and you have to wing it,” Kim said calmly. Kim and Joe kept searching. As they drove through Cudahy, they got a tip — from a Cudahy Parking Enforcement officer — about the street where the men were.
Kim and Joe pulled up and found Aunner and Mario sitting on a ledge waiting for them, their yellow bags of belongings at their feet.
Aunner had been homeless for two years following a divorce and job loss. He has done construction and worked in a warehouse. “I lived right here in the riverbank on the east side,” he said. It was difficult. “Sometimes you want to eat and don’t have much to eat… When it rains, all your stuff gets wet. You have to throw away your stuff and start over.” It’s difficult to get drinking water, too. “I’ve seen people drink water from the river.”
Now, at 40, he had an offer of interim housing. “I have to go back to work. Or do something new,” he said.
Mario, 33, had been homeless in the riverbank for three years. He had briefly been in a motel through Pathway Home but left to return to the riverbank to look for equipment he had left behind. (He had done electrical work.) For various reasons he exited the program.
Kim worked to get him back into the program, suggesting that a language barrier — he is a native Spanish speaker—might possibly have contributed to his misunderstanding of some of the rules of the program.
“I believe I’ve been given a second chance,” Mario said in Spanish as someone translated for him. He said he is willing to work “24/7” and will never live outside again.
“I don’t have anything out here anymore,” Mario said, his packed belongings by his side. “Everything that’s important to me is in that yellow bag.”
In the nearby park where the Pathway Home operation was staged and people checked in before getting rides to their motel, Maria, 55, sat holding her tiny wriggly black kitten. She had been homeless for 20 years, much of that time renting motel rooms with her partner. After he died of cancer nearly two years ago, she found herself in the riverbed.
“It was okay. People gave me tents and helped me out.” But she wasn’t accustomed to having to move from spot to spot and lose her belongings in clean-ups. A few months ago, an outreach worker began talking to her about interim housing. “I wanted to try it out,” she said. By the time she set off for the motel, she had secured her kitten in a blue cloth bag, its head poking out of the top, taking in the new surroundings.
Joel, 50, sat at a table in the courtyard of the motel signing paperwork. His sweet-natured Rottweiler, Nina, snoozed on the ground at his feet. He has been homeless off and on since 2005. “It’s cheaper in the riverbed, and if you’re pretty ingenious you can get electricity and water,” he said describing how he got water for washing from sprinkler systems and hydrants.
“You showed me a lot,” said Kevin, a friend and neighbor from the campsite, as he sat near Joel waiting for his turn to check in. “I didn’t know nothing.”
“When I lived under the bridge, I lived in the rafters so the city couldn’t see me,” said Joel, smiling at his resourcefulness. “But it was hard to take my dog in the rafters,” he added. So, he came down.
None of it was a substitute for having a place of his own, though.
“It’s illegal to be homeless,” Joel said. “Every day, I hated it. But I had no choice.”
Joel had chosen not to live with friends. “I didn’t want to be a burden and live in somebody else’s place. I’m a more solitary person. With my dog, I’m good. My dog is my emotional support system.”
“I’m glad you have her,” said the staffer from the non-profit Whittier First Day as she finished his paperwork.
Kevin, 33, had a job and then lost it and spent several years living outside and forming a bond with other people living unsheltered. “We were like family. We all looked out for each other,” he said. “Joel was there. Now all of us are here,” he said of the motel.
But it was hard for his three children, aged 15, 12, and one, who do not live with him. “It’s embarrassing in a sense,” he said. “They don’t mind it, but they wish I was safer somewhere they could come visit.” Instead, he visited them. When his outreach worker, PATH substance use disorder specialist Kendra Taylor, offered housing, “I jumped at the chance,” he said. “She made it happen. She loves her job and she does it well.”
Hopefully, more good things were headed his way. He had a phone interview that morning for a job. “I’m a worker,” he said. “I have another job interview on Friday!” He beamed as he shared his news.
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This Pathway Home operation that brought Kevin, his friends, and others inside was the result of a legion of agencies and organizations working together. In addition to the LA County Department of Homeless Services and Housing which launched the County’s signature Pathway Home program nearly three years ago, they include: PATH; the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority (LAHSA); Whittier First Day; the LA County Department of Mental Health; the Office of LA County District 4 Supervisor Janice Hahn; the cities of Maywood, Bell, South Gate, and Cudahy; the LA County Sheriff’s Homeless Outreach Services Team (HOST); the Southern California Health and Rehabilitation Program; Caltrans; LA County Department of Animal Care and Control; LA C County Fire Department; the US Army Corps of Engineers; Union Pacific Railroad, BNSF Railway; and LA Department of Water and Power.
The operation is part of the County’s multi-year initiative funded by a $51 million Encampment Resolution Fund (ERF) grant providing resources and housing to people in encampments along state highways and the Los Angeles and San Gabriel rivers.
