A homeless woman is outraged that Los Angeles officials ordered workers to tear down her “tent mansion” that contained a hot tub and a working kitchen.
Stephanie Arnold Williams calls herself the “governor” of skid row in the City of Angels and calls her large street tent the “White House.” The encampment at 5th and San Pedro included two queen size beds, linoleum flooring, and portable toilets.
“They targeted me. They came straight to me with bulldozers. That’s not a routine cleanup to come with a bulldozer,” Williams said to LA Magazine.
She says she was only given 30 minutes notice while others reportedly received two weeks notice of the police action. The encampment took her a decade to build.
“They didn’t offer me housing,” she complained. “They didn’t offer me anything. They took my blankets, my contact lenses, all my food. They threw away pots and pans and cups and things I needed to eat.”
City officials told KABC-TV that it was a routine cleanup.
Some praised the city for the action.
“We have to end Skid Row as we know it, and not allow people to suffer and die on the streets,” said Rev. Andy Bales of the Union Rescue Mission.
“Not everybody in L.A. can go camping anywhere they want to go,” he added. “You need to move inside, where you’ll be safe and where the street drugs and the violence will not continue affecting you.”
Williams is a mother of three who has been living at Skid Row since she moved to Los Angeles from Indiana in 2013. In an interview with a YouTuber in 2021, she said that she prefers living on the street and wouldn’t take an apartment even if it were free.
“It’s not terrible. It’s not what they say it is. Skid Row is nothing what people say it is. You know it’s just that you can see people’s dirty laundry. So it makes them look bad,” said Williams.
“You know, if you take the roof off of your house, it’s probably messy sometimes too!” she added.
She said there are rapists and murderers in Skid Row, but they are everywhere else too.
Here’s a news video of the tent mansion:
Tensions flare as crews dismantle several homeless encampments on Skid Rowwww.youtube.com
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