121 homeless people removed from Southern California encampment

County officials removed 121 homeless residents from a Palmdale encampment during several large-scale operations.

The effort, led by L.A. County’s Pathway Home program, was conducted with the help of several local agencies and sheriff’s departments and took place on July 22, July 31, and Aug. 19.

The encampment was located in a remote desert area where homeless residents lived in makeshift structures, tents and dilapidated RVs and vehicles.

Crews from multiple agencies worked to move 121 homeless individuals, with their cooperation, from the encampment and into temporary indoor housing. Workers removed and disposed of 32 vehicles including RVs, cars, trailers, campers and boats.

“This is a humanitarian effort and we’re trying to get people onto a better path,” explained Lt. William Kitchn from the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department. “The extreme heat and the extreme cold in the wintertime, a lack of access to fresh water — all those things come into play.”

“This is something that’s been going on for a few years,” said Austin Bishop, Mayor of Palmdale. These [summer heat] conditions are extremely brutal so it’s nice to get them out of these dire conditions which are borderline health and life-threatening.”

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The Palmdale effort marks Pathway Home’s largest removal endeavor to date. The county has conducted 19 encampment operations since the program launched in August 2023.

In total, the program has moved 783 homeless people into interim housing and 131 people into permanent housing. Around 496 RVs have been taken off the road.

“These people have been experiencing homelessness for a very long time,” said Kimberly Barnette from the L.A. County Homeless Initiative. “The camps here are a little bit off-grid so it’s sometimes more challenging but our outreach teams have been working tirelessly with the sheriff’s department to make sure [we have] everything we need to properly prepare for these folks to come indoors into the Pathway Home program.”

Multiple agencies and nonprofit organizations helped with the Palmdale operations including:

• Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority (LAHSA)

• L.A. County Sheriff’s Department and Homeless Outreach Services Team

• Mental Health America Los Angeles

• LA Family Housing

• Valley Oasis

• Volunteers of America

• L.A. County Department of Mental Health

• L.A. County Department of Public Works

• L.A. County Department of Animal Care and Control

• L.A. County Fire Department

More information about Pathway Home can be found here.

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