Los Angeles

Signs Deterring Homeless Camping Go Up in Pacific Palisades, Citing Fire Hazard

New "restricted access" signs cite fire risk in targeting homeless camps.

Citing the risk of wildfires started in homeless encampments, a community group and Los Angeles City officials Wednesday unveiled new signs prohibiting access to two "very high fire severity hazard" areas in the community of Pacific Palisades.
 
"Restricted Entry" is printed in white letters against a red background. "Trespassing & Loitering Forbidden by Law."
 
It's believed to be the first time wildfire hazard has been cited for denying year-round access to undeveloped government property within the city of Los Angeles, though the authority to do so has been in the municipal code for several years.
 
Eight signs were posted near evident foot paths that lead into hillside areas of brush and native vegetation where homeless are known to camp. Three of the signs went up at the edge of lower

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Temescal Canyon Park, and the rest along Palisades Drive in Santa Ynez Canyon.
 
The signs were proposed by the Palisades Task Force of Homelessness.
 
"The potential for a fire, the calculus has increased greatly by having people living all through these hills in tents," said Bruce Schwartz, who heads government relations for the task force.
 
Schwartz and Task Force Chair Maryam Zar stressed that the focus is "health and safety," but she acknowledged that "it certainly does dovetail in with homelessness and it's one of the things that we know does concern the people of the Palisades the most."
 
The task force was created a year ago. A homeless survey in January found that some 180 homeless people were staying in Pacific Palisades, which consists of a series of canyons
and mesas with bluffs, inland from Pacific Coast Highway. It is in the bluffs where the majority of the homeless camp, Zar said the survey found.
 
A year ago January, a fire which started in a homeless encampment alongside the coast highway burned up the slope toward houses at the top, but none were damaged. Last month in Fullerton,
investigators concluded a 500-acre wildfire had been ignited by transient activity. 
 
After the devastating Bel Air Fire of 1961, Los Angeles created the forerunner of the "very high fire severity hazard zone," mapped in 1999, and consisting of most of the city's hilly and 
mountainous regions. Pacific Palisades falls within it.
 
In those areas, signs for decades have warned that smoking and open fires are prohibited.
 
It was the task force's idea to use the authority in the municipal code to post entry restriction, and it won the support of Mike Bonin, the city councilman who represents the Palisades, and the city fire department.
 
"With the establishment of homeless camps that we've seen throughout the communities in the brush areas and also some of the riverbed areas, it was an appropriate approach to say, 'let's put some signage up,'" said Assistant Fire Chief Patrick Butler.
 
The signs provide "awareness" and put "teeth in the law," Butler said.
 
The task force wants additional signs to be located on the inland side of the Coast Highway between Temescal Canyon and Chautauqua Boulevard, and farther up coast below the Castellamare neighborhood, Zar said.
 
The signs do not cost the city money, but instead the expense is borne by local donations, Zar said.
 
In placing the first eight signs, the Task Force attempted to locate them near known homeless camps, Schwartz said. Long stretches of Palisades Drive do not have signs. Schwartz said there is no intent to post a sign at the access point to the rock face that is popular with climbers.
 
Schwartz and Zar acknowledged that the posting of the signs is "selective," but only in the sense of trying to locate them close to areas seen as most at risk of fire from camps.
 
The task force intends to retain a service provider that will contact homeless in the Palisades for the purpose of placing them in housing. Zar said she expects that will begin the first of next year. 
 
The fire department would be receptive to other hillside neighborhoods requesting "restricted entry" signs, but before they could be approved, surveys would first need to be done by fire personnel, Butler said.
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