Then Arescus is a metro reporter for Los Angeles Times.

He covers housing and homelessness, which is the crisis eclipsing every other problem

facing the city right now, except for maybe the pandemic, maybe.

Homelessness, if you talk to some of my colleagues who have worked at the LA Times 10, 20, 30

years, they say homelessness is now in every neighborhood.

It's not just by the beach and Venice, downtown by Skid Row.

It's sort of something that has spread into every neighborhood.

People are sleeping beneath overpasses in alleys, but also on sidewalks and in parks.

A couple years ago, the housing crisis came to roost in a park called Echo Park Lake,

a gym in the neighborhood known as Echo Park.

It's sort of the center of like public life in that neighborhood.

It's where people go and hang out with their friends and ride swan boats.

It's also the site of one of the most unique encampments of unhoused people in LA.

Ben estimated 80 to 100 people were living there on the flat side of the park, creating

a stark split screen effect of haves and have-nots.

It's on a Saturday you'd see people sitting with their friends on benches or on the grass,

hiking beers or hanging out, people selling tacos or a lotte.

Then on the west side of the park, which was called to me when I was doing the reporting

the homeless side, you had rows and rows of tents.

Last week, Ben got a scoop.

The city would be closing the park to everyone and forcing out anybody living inside.

Only city officials wouldn't say when it was happening.

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