A video circulating on X appears to show a massive, trash-filled encampment next to a California waterway. The poster claims that there were only two long-term occupants at the site.
The video, which has racked up thousands of likes and comments, shows tents, mounds of garbage, dozens of items the poster labels as stolen bikes, carved dirt stairs, and a vast array of other hoarded items covering the property.
The poster directly blamed Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass and California Governor Gavin Newsom for allowing the site to exist and attributed the alleged degradation and crime in the neighborhood directly to the conditions.
The video was posted to X by a user who reshared a TikTok video where the person behind the camera was documenting what the poster calls the aftermath of a long-term California encampment.
The details provided in the post, including the number of people at the site, whether the bicycles in the video were stolen, and who is to blame for the conditions, have not been independently confirmed.
The encampment’s California location has also not been confirmed as of the time of publication.
According to the X video poster, the site was occupied by only two individuals for an extended period. The video, if true to its poster’s word, depicts a semi-permanent, carved-dirt stair encampment next to a California waterway filled with tents, trash, debris, and dozens of what the poster identified as stolen bicycles.
The poster contends that a large encampment like the one pictured proves how quickly out-of-control encampments grow, that neighborhood crime can rise due to encampments, and that the size of the encampment shows how poorly the situation is being managed by authorities.
Internet Reacts To California Encampment Video Showing Waterway Trash Site
Many zeroed in on accountability at the top. “Hoarders with no boundaries,” one person wrote. “California’s leaders should be held accountable.” Others were more blunt about the double standard they perceived: “Free living and they can’t keep their own *expletive* clean,” a user commented.
One reply captured the contradiction many viewers saw in the footage: “The irony of putting in enough work to level the tent space and add stairs, but they can’t keep the space free of trash and debris,” one comment read.
Some used the video to make a broader political argument. “If Democrats had their way, we all would eventually be living on the streets,” one person wrote. Others questioned the logic of hoarding at all: “I’ll never understand homeless hoarders – isn’t the whole point to be a minimalist,” a user commented.
And one reply tried to put the scale of the problem in statewide perspective: “And then multiply half that amount of trash by every ‘homeless’ person throughout this state since the authorities do nothing for weeks while they accumulate it,” one comment read.
California is home to the largest number of unhoused people in the United States. The state is home to nearly 28% of the nation’s unhoused people, despite having only about 12% of the nation’s total population.
More than 75,000 unhoused people reside in Los Angeles County, according to the last official count.
The state has already invested millions of dollars in addressing the homelessness crisis, but every emerging video continues to highlight just how out of touch elected officials remain.
