Tag Archives: Homeless

I spent Good Friday in the Hollywood Hills with some police and deputy sheriffs, who were removing homeless encampments. (Here’s the LAT story.)

One homeless fellow lived high into the hills. Two officers and I followed him up to where he had his tent. It was well above the Hollywood cross, where his neighbors were a hawk and a deer and another homeless guy.

He said he was bi-polar, and had been in prison in Missouri and was out in LA escaping a bad marriage, among other things. He made the trip up the hill every night, he said.

Down below were new houses near Lake Hollywood, where officers tell me the new residents are now bothered by people coming up to look at the Hollywood sign.

Anyway, we moved him out of there. He carried a large suitcase on his back past the cross and down that hill, off a promontory from which we had a virtually 360-degree view of Southern California.

The officers and I grabbed bedding and bags of his belongings, one of which was a Star Wars light sabre.

He gave me a staff, saying it was given him by the “necromancer” and could raise the dead. He had a Darth Vader mask as well.

Down below, the Ford Theaters advertised an upcoming show as “Naked Before God.”

The religious symbolism never stopped coming all morning.

I spent yesterday with police and Sheriff’s deputies as they traversed hills and freeway embankments looking for homeless folks. They moved them out, offered them services, such as shelter housing, which some of them took. (See the LAT story.)

One encampment had nine people, sleeping in a line next to a wall that ran along an on-ramp to southbound Highway 101. The place was strewn with bedding, cigarette and fast food wrappers, and hand-made signs. Here are a few.