“Sweeps,” or sanitation cleanings, as they’re sometimes called, are supposed to keep our city sidewalks clean and help move people living on the streets indoors. But according to new data obtained by L.A. TACO from the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority (LAHSA), the lead agency responsible for homeless housing and services in the city, few unhoused people have been sheltered as a result of outreach associated with the encampment clearings seen regularly across the city (also known as “CARE cleanings”).
And almost nobody has been moved into permanent supportive housing.
“I don't know how many times that they’ve came and taken down my information,” said La Donna, an unhoused woman living near an electrical substation in an industrial part of the San Fernando Valley, during an interview last month. “And nothing has come from it.”
Since 2019 more than 30,000 unhoused residents, like La Donna, have been “enrolled” in the CARE outreach program according to LAHSA’s data. That’s roughly ten thousand fewer people than the total number of unhoused residents currently living in the City of Los Angeles.
Less than 10 percent of those 30,000 “enrollees” moved into a temporary housing facility.