LA City Council repeals 41.18 anti-camping zones in Echo Park, Silverlake

The Los Angeles City Council voted Tuesday to rescind 12 anti-camping zones in Council District 13, which covers parts of Silver Lake, Echo Park, and other central LA neighborhoods.

The zones were created under a controversial city ordinance known as 41.48, which was passed by the council in 2021 and bans sleeping, sitting, and lying in many public spaces. Councilmembers can designate specific 41.18 zones by resolution. In 2022, the City Council amended 41.18 to ban camping citywide within 500 feet of schools and daycare centers.

Advocates have organized against the law for years, claiming it allows Los Angeles Police Department officers and other city workers to displace, harass, fine, and arrest unhoused people, furthering the cycle of homelessness.

On Tuesday, Councilmember Hugo Soto-Martínez put forth a motion to remove the discretionary zones in his 13th district, which were set up by his predecessor Mitch O’Farrell in 2021, saying they made it harder for his office to connect people to services.

“ Displacing our neighbors from block to block, or in many cases from district to district, doesn’t help them find housing,” Soto-Martínez said, who was reelected in June.

Activists working with LA’s unhoused population applauded the move. LA Street Care organizer Kris Rehl, who has organized against 41.18 in Soto-Martínez’s district, called the vote “a big victory.”

Rehl told council members at Tuesday’s meeting that 41.18 impedes the ability of people who are unhoused to get housing.

“ Case managers can’t find people when those rare housing matches are made because they’ve been displaced,” they said. “And even if they do manage to locate them, fines often interfere with people entering those housing placements.”

LA organizers and unhoused people have campaigned for more than a year to remove 41.18 zones in Soto-Martínez’s district. On Feb. 21, Rehl and other organizers delivered a letter signed by more than 50 groups at Soto-Martínez’s reelection canvassing kickoff at Bellevue Park in Silver Lake. The letter demanded his commitment to removing the zones.

In a written response from Feb. 25, Soto-Martínez said his office would undertake “a comprehensive analysis of 41.18 zones, and enforcement data in Council District 13,” but the coalition responded by criticizing Soto-Martínez for not offering a timeline for this analysis.

On March 4, the coalition called for a boycott of Soto-Martínez’s campaign fundraiser. In another written response sent a day later, Soto-Martínez said he could not share a timeline, but offered an assurance that “our team is working diligently on this issue.”

In late May, a week before June’s primary election, organizers staged a sanitation “sweep” in front of Soto-Martínez’s apartment building, which they identify as a common tactic used to remove encampments under 41.18.

In mid-August, Soto-Martínez introduced the motion to remove his district’s 41.18 zones. Prior to doing so, city council staff and local organizers did outreach to residents in Soto-Martínez’s district. LA Public Press reviewed a flyer that canvassers handed out explaining that 41.18 made it difficult for outreach workers to deliver services to unhoused people.

“If a policy makes it harder to build relationships and get people indoors, we have to reconsider whether it’s achieving the goal we all share,” the flyer said.

Soto-Martínez’s spokesperson Andoni Elias Nava said staff and volunteers knocked on more than 2,500 doors and sent out 10,000 mailers, saying the vast majority of people who responded “supported or did not oppose the removal of these zones.”

“We have always believed that these zones are counterproductive to the work we are doing, and now we have the data, and have done the necessary outreach to back that up,” Soto-Martínez told LA Public Press in a written statement on Aug. 17.

Celeste Voce, who serves on the board of the SELAH Neighborhood Homeless Coalition, which organizes in the 13th district, among others, said she helped canvas Soto-Martínez’s district in July. She said she talked to approximately 15 people in a two-hour period. Voce called the support for removing the 41.18 zones “pretty unanimous” and said the unhoused people she interacted with during outreach had a lot of anxiety about camping in a 41.18 zone and risking expensive tickets and other enforcement.

“ A lot of them would go inside if that was available to them, but it’s just often not,” she said. “It’s a risk they know they take, but it causes a lot of stress.”

Some of Soto-Martínez’s Council colleagues expressed opposition to his motion on Tuesday. LA City Councilmember Traci Park, who represents parts of the Westside, said that 41.18 has kept public areas safe, clean, and accessible.

“ I can’t support the removal of common sense measures to keep kids and families safe,” she said.

Park, who also won her reelection bid in June, has been vocal in her opposition to unhoused communities and encampments in her district.

Councilmember Imelda Padilla, who represents parts of the San Fernando Valley, said she was voting against the motion because Soto-Martínez had voted against her resolutions to establish 41.18 zones in her district.

Despite the win, Rehl said there is still “ a lot more work to do to end criminalization of poverty in Los Angeles.”

They want progressive councilmembers Eunisses Hernandez and Ysabel Jurado to take up similar motions to remove 41.18 zones in their districts. City data shows that in Hernandez’s district, the number of 41.18 arrests nearly tripled in 2023, her first year in office. The highest number of 41.18 arrests in 2024 were in Jurado’s district.

“ There’s a real urgency in both of those communities to take action,” Rehl said.

Hernandez and Jurado voted for Soto-Martínez’s motion, but did not comment on it during the council meeting.

https://lapublicpress.org/2026/08/la-city-council-soto-martinez-anti-camping-law-unhoused/

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5896160&forum_id=2~#50086391)

I understand when some lib judge says its illegal to have tehse restrictions but can't fathom a politician voting for homeless encampments.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5896160&forum_id=2~#50086397)