Head of Homeless Encampment Cleanups Addresses Process

By Hunter Chase, Reporter

Brian Buchner, the chief of homeless operations and street strategies for Mayor Eric Garcetti’s office, explained how he conducts cleanups of homeless encampments at the Feb. 20 meeting of the Harbor Division Community Police Advisory Board.

Buchner oversees the Unified Homelessness Response Center, which coordinates homeless outreach and cleanups of homeless encampments. The Cleaning and Rapid Engagement of Care program was proposed by Garcetti and approved by the Los Angeles City Council. It was a fundamental shift in the way the city approached the public right of way, Buchner said.

Prior to the program, there were 800 cleanup operations being done in the city in a month. CARE doubled that number.

“While we’re building all of these additional units and working to bring people indoors, we have to find a way to improve the overall health and cleanliness of our public spaces,” Buchner said.

Buchner said the cleanups are not supposed to punish homeless people, but instead improve their overall cleanliness and health.

The CARE program was rolled out in October 2019. Initially, there were two types of cleanup teams. One was called a CARE-plus team, which had nine sanitation employees and two outreach workers.  The other was simply called a CARE team, which had four sanitation employees and two outreach workers.

The cleanup teams are supposed to enforce section 56.11 of the Streets and Highways Code, meaning that homeless people can still have their belongings on the sidewalk, but there must be 36 inches of sidewalk available to walk through.

If sanitation workers close off the area for a posted cleanup and the people camped there do not move in time, they are only permitted to take whatever they can fit in a 60 gallon bin with them.

Initially, only the CARE plus teams could do posted cleanups, Buchner said. These cleanups involved the team posting notices that the area would be cleaned, giving the homeless people camped there a chance to move their stuff. The posted signs would give 24 hours notice at least, but preferably 48 or 72. Because of criticisms, the smaller CARE teams can now do posted cleanups as well.

The homeless encampment at Beacon and 9th streets was cleaned up on Dec. 24 and there have been several cleanups there in the meantime.

The CARE program’s strategy is to lead with outreach, pairing outreach workers with sanitation workers for the initial engagement with homeless people, Buchner said. The Los Angeles Police Department is no longer part of the first contact with individuals. This is both because Buchner and LAPD do not believe police should be making first contact and because the scope of the CARE program has grown too big.

Before the CARE program started, there were 14 or 15 cleanup teams, Buchner said. Now there are 30 teams.

“If all 30 teams are operating on a daily basis across the city, LAPD simply doesn’t have the resources to have officers in pocket for that cleanup operation every single time,” Buchner said.

Instead, the LAPD plays “zone defense” and they are available whenever the cleanup teams need them.

“Homelessness and crime are not the same thing,” Buchner said. “Some people who are homeless commit crimes and the city does not back away from enforcing the law. But they’re not the same thing.”

There are encampments where there is drug dealing, violence and sex trafficking — but the people who are most at risk are the people in said encampments, Buchner said. If an area has a history of crime, the LAPD will be sent before the outreach and cleanups teams.

The LAPD recently arrested 30 homeless people at one encampment, said Senior Lead Officer Dante Pagulayan.