Westlake emerges as the epicenter of homeless encampment complaints

The number of complaints about tent encampments to the city’s MyLA311 service hit its highest number ever in August, at 8,730. Before 2023, there had never been more than 7,000 reports in a single month.

One neighborhood has seen complaints skyrocket faster than any other: Westlake. In the period from Jan. 1–Aug. 31, the community that includes MacArthur Park produced 4,902 reports, according to publicly available MyLA311 data. That works out to about 8.4% of the calls in the entire city. 

Of those calls, 22% cite addresses on Wilshire Boulevard. The three addresses with the most reports all border MacArthur Park.

In July and August, there were a total of 1,734 calls in Westlake. That exceeds the 1,643 reports made during the entire year in Van Nuys, which has the seventh-highest neighborhood count in the city. 

The Westlake call volume from Jan. 1–Aug. 31 is more than double the 2,294 reports from Downtown, which has the second-highest count in the eight-month period. 

Kimberly Martinez, secretary of the Westlake South Neighborhood Council and a community resident for 20 years, said she has witnessed a dramatic change. 

“This community is, in a way, transforming into a second Skid Row,” Martinez said.

Langer’s francas

City leaders regularly classify homelessness as the greatest challenge facing Los Angeles, with dangers for those living on the streets, and anger from people residing near encampments. Even before this summer, complaints were rising. In 2019 there were about 55,500 citywide encampment calls. The total last year surpassed 72,000.

The attention on Westlake has grown in the past month. MacArthur Park was put in the spotlight after Los Angeles Times columnist Steve Lopez wrote about the potential closure of landmark restaurant Langer’s Delicatessen due to owner Norm Langer’s frustration with homelessness and drug use in the neighborhood. 

That sparked top-level attention, and on Sept. 19 Mayor Karen Bass announced an Inside Safe operation that brought 25 people experiencing homelessness indoors in the blocks around MacArthur Park. The work was done in coordination with Councilmember Eunissnes Hernandez, whose District 1 encompasses Westlake. Norm Langer has walked back plans to imminently shutter the establishment.

Search for solutions

The MyLA311 system allows Angelenos to request services including bulky item pickup and graffiti removal. Calls about encampments do not automatically spark a city response, but enough of them could propel a spot cleaning by the Bureau of Sanitation. 

Hernandez generally opposes “sweeps” of encampments that she says simply move people experiencing homelessness from one place to another. She has called for redirecting money from policing to housing and anti-homelessness efforts. 

Despite a slew of efforts to combat homelessness, including a previous Inside Safe operation in June, Westlake’s encampment complaints persist. 

The rise in calls comes as the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority reported in June that homelessness citywide had decreased for the first time in six years. Although the overall drop was marginal, the number of unsheltered individuals in the city fell by 10.4%. 

Still, some community members, including Gabriel Owens-Flores, vice president of the MacArthur Park Neighborhood Council, believe that the operations may be ineffective in providing meaningful resources for the unsheltered. There are frequent calls for much more permanent supportive housing with on-site services.

There is no clear explanation for why encampment calls are rising so dramatically citywide. Observers say conditions on the street are likely part of it, but the attention that Bass has paid to homelessness, including through Inside Safe, also might inspire people to report encampments.

How we did it: We examined publicly available MyLA311 service request data about homeless encampment calls from Jan. 1, 2017–Aug. 31, 2024. For neighborhood boundaries, we rely on the borders defined by the Los Angeles Times. The city of Los Angeles may update past service requests with new information, or recategorize past reports. Those revised reports do not always automatically become part of the public database.

Have questions about our data or want to know more? Write to us at askus@xtown.la.