Toluca Lake residents outraged over growing pile of trash near homeless encampment
Residents in Toluca Lake are outraged over the massive pile of growing trash at a now-vacant gas station, which has turned into a homeless encampment.
The encampment is located near Moorpark Street and Vineland Avenue and has drawn the attention of nearby business owners as the amount of waste has seemingly grown over recent weeks.
"It's gross. If you wanna go walk somewhere and there's urine and you have to walk in the street cause the sidewalk is totally packed," said Hillarie Waadt, who lives nearby.
She says that even though it's not the worst that she's seen it after a few rounds of cleanup from city departments, the problem has been constant.
"It would get really out of control, sort of spilling out into the street and blocking the underpass," Waadt said. "So, the sanitation comes, cleans everybody out, cleans everything out and then they slowly sort of creep back."
The buildup of trash started at the vacant gas station but soon spilled onto the sidewalk, which some people are describing as a "garbage dump" as more and more homeless people moved into the area.
Despite their attempts to contact city officials and law enforcement, nothing has yet been done.
When asked if he thinks that the city has done enough to provide a long term solution,
"Absolutely not. Not at the moment," said Nino Mancuso, another resident. "We're just letting them sleep on the sidewalk. I mean, ironically, I don't think it's very humane."
Residents have taken matters into their own hands, organizing efforts on social media to call local city leaders, including City Council member Paul Krekorian, and demand action.
Krekorian's office issued a statement upon request from KCAL News, clarifying that encampments in the area used to be worse, but that they the problem has been mitigated by enforcement of the city's no camping law.
In part, the statement said: "While individual problem areas still demand our attention, we should not lose sight of the enormous progress we have made in the last years alone."
Further, they claim that the people living in the problem area have decline assistance from the city thus far.
KCAL News' requests for comment on the matter have not yet been answered.
