LOS ANGELES — Three years ago, Joel Hernandez built a small wooden cabin under the 405 Freeway that runs through Los Angeles.
He was helped by a friend who lives in his own hut, a few steps down the stairs he had carefully dug out of the earthen slope and reinforced with wooden planks.
Hernandez has had similar homes evicted into homeless camps by state and city authorities over the years, so the 62-year-old is content that his days in his makeshift shelter on state-owned land may be numbered. California Gov. Gavin Newsom on Thursday an executive order issued ordering government agencies to begin clearing homeless camps on state lands, including parcels of land under highways.
“You get used to it,” Hernandez said. “I have to rebuild it every time.”
Many people living in these camps expressed a similar sentiment of quiet resignation. Some simply wonder: where else to go?
The measure follows a U.S. Supreme Court ruling earlier this summer that allows cities to enforce bans on outdoor sleeping in public places, even if no sleeping spaces are available.
Newsom’s order directs state agencies to take swift action and follow the lead of the California Department of Transportation, better known as Caltrans, which has removed 11,188 camps and more than 248,000 cubic yards (189,600 cubic meters) of debris from those camps along the state’s roads, primarily freeways and interstates, since July 2021. Caltrans oversees a large part of the country under and near the state’s highways and interstates.
But usually the people living in those camps return after the authorities leave.
“I haven’t found a better place,” said Hernandez, who has been on the waiting list for a shelter for three years. At least here he lives close to his friends and gets along well with most of the people in the camp, Hernandez said.
Hernandez and others admit it’s not the safest place to live. A recent fire destroyed many of the underpass shelters, blackening the underside of the freeway and leaving the area littered with burned trash, a broken grill, abandoned shopping carts and more.
Esca Guernon lives next to the highway, away from the underpass, with her dog, Champion. Sometimes people disturb her tent while she sleeps or steal her things. But she always comes back after sweeping the camp.
“We have to take what we have, like our bikes or something, and we go over there so they can clean it up,” Guernon said, pointing across the street. “I’m coming back because I don’t know where to go.”
On Friday, an outreach team from Hope the Mission in Van Nuys, California, handed out cold bottles of water and snacks to Guernon and her friend. They’ll be back in a few days to begin the intake process and put them on a waiting list for a shelter.
“We just build a relationship with them,” said Armando Covarrubias, an outreach team leader with the organization. It can take repeated visits before someone accepts their offer of help, he said.
According to Covarrubias, Newsom’s executive order does nothing to reduce the number of homeless people, many of whom are forced to wait outside for a bed in a shelter.
“It’s not a solution. It’s not fair to them,” Covarrubias said. “This just puts more stress on them.”
Newsom and his supporters, many of whom are businesses, say the encampments cannot continue because they pose health and safety risks to both the homeless and nearby residents.
His executive order is about “creating the sense of urgency needed for local governments to do their jobs,” Newsom said.