A team of workers in Los Angeles watched the property of Alejandro Diaz, home of the Arroyo Seco Flood Channel, on Monday morning.
“It’s an injustice,” Diaz, 29, said in Spanish. “Even if we don’t bother anyone, the city doesn’t care about anything other than destroying our lives. All my time, we have no one bothered anyone.”
After sunrise, the city began working, clearing camps between Highway 110 and flood access that has existed since the pandemic began. The shelter was demolished by city workers and scraped the floor of the flood passage with pitchforks, shovels and bulldozers while those living there watched.
Diaz became popular at the channel’s home last year, with news reports highlighting his skills in adding windows, bamboo fences and a garden with a framed bright yellow siding.
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But last week, people along the channel received paper notices warning them that their personal property cannot be stored in city parks and will be deleted during a scheduled cleaning process, which is usually conducted 72 hours after the warning is issued. The shelter sits on the other side of the Arroyo Seco bike path and the flood access of the park.
Officials said the city targets shelters as cleaning up because they are located in high-risk fire areas. The cleanup was conducted by the New York City Department of Recreation and Parks, while Councilman Eunisses Hernandez deployed an outreach team with Lahsa to contact residents ahead of Monday’s event.
Like many others who live next to the flood passage, Diaz works in construction but can’t find a stable job. He occasionally finds jobs in the local Home Depot parking lot, but says he keeps himself as much as possible.
He is one of the thousands of homeless people in Los Angeles County. The county’s unflirted number dropped for the first time in five years in 2024, but the total in 2025 has not been released yet as recent fires delayed the count.
Los Angeles’ entertainment and park staff worked to remove a small community of people who built sheds and other shelters along the lips of the concrete Arroyo Seco Wash in Highland Park.
(Brian van der Brug/Los Angeles Times)
As cleanup crews operated Monday, Diaz kicked the fence, smashed the windows, rolled the big boulders from his garden into the Flood Channel. His girlfriend Wendy and their dog Papi looked at the hybrid German Shepherd Papi.
Frustratingly, the Guatemala-born immigrant slammed a dog house until he thought of all the work he had called home in the last five years when his knuckles started crying.
“They don’t know what they’re doing to him,” Wendy said.
Diaz asked someone to take pictures of his house before and after cleaning up the work to show that he was here.
“I bet they won’t clean anything the right way,” he said as he hugged the dog. Wendy and Papi cried later.
Ahead of Monday’s scan, volunteer advocate Elizabeth Gustafson’s rally with the Northeast community sent a letter asking the city to reconsider, saying housing was limited, along the flood channel People work together to maintain their homes.
“Not only is the destructiveness of the unwelcome people who create communities along Arroyo, mutual support and neighbors, but they are also an obscene waste of urban resources that they do nothing,” Gustafson wrote. “Angelenos (Angelenos) faces a stunning housing crisis, and it makes no sense to destroy homes and communities that destroy stability in unbelievable circumstances.”
Cesar Augusto crosses Arroyo Seco on the makeshift bridge with his dog Salome, Los Angeles Entertainment and Parks staff working to remove him along the wash Small communities along the coast.
(Brian van der Brug/Los Angeles Times)
In another shelter, LA police joined the Park Rangers and pushed them into Cesar Augusto’s home. The officer knocked on the door and forced their puppy, Salome, to roar inward.
Officials told Augusto to remove cleaning staff from the piles of items he collected, including tools and cooking utensils. Augusto, 44, arrived in Los Angeles from Guatemala about 20 years ago. After his employer died a few years ago, he struggled to find a stable job as a house painter.
“There is no shame in what they do,” he said of the city’s cleansing action. “God kept watching. He knew what would happen.”
Cesar Augusto follows Arroyo Seco along Los Angeles Entertainment and Parks staff working to demolish the small community he lives along Wash.
(Brian van der Brug/Los Angeles Times)
Augusto’s girlfriend and puppy sit nearby. They didn’t know where to go next, watching the bulldozer’s tread flatten their property.
A park ranger tried to yell at Augusto about his property, which was his roar on heavy machinery.
“What do you want?” shouted the ranger. “I’ll give you enough time.”
Lorena Amador, 51, was stolen and tore off the walls of one of her shelters and told her she had to leave. Her goal for the day was to save her bedding and jacket, and a park ranger took some luggage to help her as she moved up and down with a rope.
When the bulldozer approached her shelter, she moved to the flood passage to wash her hair. Arroyo Seco is ideal for living on city streets, she said.
“We all know each other and we’re all getting along,” she said.
