Last May, in Los Angeles’ coastal Venice neighborhood, Adam Smith noticed a series of planter boxes in the middle of a familiar sidewalk. Affixed near the intersection of Third and Sunset avenues, mere blocks from a Google campus and a suite of oceanside cafes, the standalone planters ran roughly the length of a wall delineating a parking lot behind a luxury condo complex.
Previously, Smith told Capital & Main, a group of six to 10 homeless people had regularly slept in tents on that block, favoring it for its relatively plentiful street light. A volunteer for the Culver-Palms Burrito Project, which prepares and serves the titular food to the unhoused of West Los Angeles, he’d become acquainted with individuals living there over the course of several years.
Once the planters were installed, however, the sidewalk was clear. “That next day, after I saw [the planter boxes] for the first time, I went there to look around because I figured they were sleeping somewhere else,” Smith said. “I found people up around the corner, just, like, a block away.”
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