LOS ANGELES, July 28, (AP): Three years ago, Joel Hernandez built a small wooden shack under the 405 freeway cutting through Los Angeles.
He had the help of a friend who lives in his own shack, just a few steps down the stairs he painstakingly dug out of the dirt hillside and reinforced with wooden planks.
Hernandez has had similar homes be cleared in homeless encampment sweeps by state or city authorities over the years, so the 62-year-old is taking in stride that his days in his makeshift shelter on state-owned land might be numbered. California Gov Gavin Newsom on Thursday issued an executive order directing state agencies to start clearing homeless encampments on state land, including lots under freeways.
"You get used to it,” Hernandez said. "I have to rebuild it every time.”
Many people living in these encampments echoed a similar sentiment of quiet resignation. Some simply wonder: Where else is there to go?
The order comes on the heels of a US Supreme Court ruling earlier this summer allowing cities to enforce bans on sleeping outside in public spaces, even if there are no shelter beds available.
Newsom's order directs state agencies to act soon and follow the lead of the California Department of Transportation, known as Caltrans, which has removed 11,188 encampments and more than 248,000 cubic yards (189,600 cubic meters) of debris from these encampments along the state rights of way, mostly freeways and highways, since July 2021. Caltrans oversees much of the land under and near the state’s freeways and highways.
But most of the time, the people living in those encampments return after officials leave.