When I heard from participants of my dissertation research on urban vehicle dwellings that they’d been told they’d have to move on an upcoming Wednesday, May 29th, I had no reason to suspect anything different than a typical sweep operation. Outreach workers from LAHSA would come by with perhaps an offer to be put on a waitlist or for shelter, vehicle residents would be told to clear the area, those who refused or were stuck would probably be cited and towed, and Sanitation crews would clear their stuff while leaving behind various debris, all with LAPD looking on. City council offices direct where and when sweeps are to occur, so I assumed Traci Park’s office was behind it.

But the morning of the scheduled sweep operation behind the Playa Vista Home Depot, a text from an RV resident living on the street alerted me that something different was going on: “Get this. They are putting large silver ‘tubs’ in the street, which will prevent anyone from parking.” After driving over to investigate the tubs myself, I got some answers.

By the time I arrived that morning, all vehicle residents of the street save for one person were gone, having re-located to nearby areas, where many of them remain several weeks after the fact. The street didn’t appear to have been cleaned very much if at all, something multiple residents of the street who witnessed the operation’s start confirmed with me. It wasn’t clear whether Sanitation had even visited the site that morning, when these residents had been told to move not by city staff per usual but by a Home Depot employee.

When I walked down the street to see who was installing the planters, I encountered two Home Depot employees and two people in plainclothes who didn’t identify themselves but confirmed that the “city is involved.” A woman in plainclothes said they’d only complete one section of the street that day, but had plans to eventually block off the whole street with planters. When I returned soon after to take a video of them working to install the planters (minus the woman I’d spoken with prior), one of the Home Depot employees confirmed her statement: “the city has already authorized it,” he said. When I asked if the council office was out here, he replied, “they literally were standing here earlier.”

If what I heard from those illegally installing the planters about the city’s authorization is true, it should be a red flag for anyone who is serious about solving homelessness and political corruption. As one vehicle resident of the street reflected, “the city is supposed to be helping the homeless; instead, they’re kicking them out!” In that respect, this isn’t a new pattern: at least two of the vehicle residents behind Home Depot had been displaced by the city from the nearby Ballona Wetlands last summer, where they were offered shelter only if they first agreed to give up their RV, a bet they weren’t willing to take.

While the planters were removed by Home Depot in reaction to the Los Angeles Times story about them, the city’s potential collusion in their installation and the displacement of vehicle residents from the block leads to more questions. Home Depot claimed that a local citizen donated the planter tubs and materials, and the Department of Public works cited the unidentified “responsible parties.” But local organizers identified at least one other street in the immediate area with identical planters that doesn’t appear to have a permit: the northern side of Beatrice St. between Westlawn Ave. and Grosvenor Blvd., which borders several office buildings, including the offices of renowned architect Frank Gehry. These planters and other forms of hostile architecture have cropped up in other west coast cities from San Francisco to Seattle, often with tacit or even explicit approval from the city. This and the hostile architecture like fences that cities set up themselves to prevent access to public spaces previously occupied by the unhoused sets a bad precedent.

So far, the office of councilperson Traci Park has neither confirmed nor denied that they knew about the operation beforehand. Journalists should request their office’s communication records with Home Depot and the nearby Westside Neighborhood School, both neighborhood stakeholders who are upset at the camp’s existence. Such a request should also include public communications with the advertising firm Deutsch LA, whose parking lot appears to have been the re-location site for the planters after their removal, perhaps indicating who donated them.

Following the LA Times’ story, the city came back for another sweep, this time in more typical fashion with LADOT in tow to hand out tickets to vehicle dwellers for not moving their vehicles during what one might by this point simply call harassment with a side of sanitation. The displacement of unhoused people and political rhetoric regarding them paves the way for more harassment: two residents who left the street behind Home Depot after the planters operation recently had a human face-sized rock thrown through the back window of their RV. “We now have PTSD from this incident,” reflected one of the RV’s residents, who was almost hit by the rock while lying in bed.

Following the LA Times’ story, the city came back for another sweep, this time in more typical fashion with LADOT in tow to hand out tickets to vehicle dwellers for not moving their vehicles during what one might by this point simply call harassment with a side of sanitation. The displacement of unhoused people and political rhetoric regarding them paves the way for more harassment: two residents who left the street behind Home Depot after the planters operation recently had a human face-sized rock thrown through the back window of their RV. “We now have PTSD from this incident,” reflected one of the RV’s residents, who was almost hit by the rock while lying in bed.