EFE.- Walking through Century Boulevard in Inglewood, a city in Los Angeles County, in the days leading up to the Super Bowl, means witnessing an image wash in record time of an enclave known for its conflict and the problems suffered by homeless people.
Banners, posters or announcements of the event on giant screens make up reality on this avenue where the SoFi Stadium is located, which will host the Super Bowl final tomorrow.
Nearly 100 million people watched the gigantic sporting event last year, so county officials — and Inglewood — have coordinated to strengthen the international image of the Los Angeles brand.
The premise is to ensure that no episode of violence occurs and erase any hint of the homeless encampments that, like the rest of Los Angeles, have exploded due to the Covid pandemic.
“Near the stadium we will not see the camps, but if they drive just a few miles they will see the devastation of Los Angeles,” the director of the reception program of the Union Rescue Mission organization in Los Angeles, Cynthia Jiménez, explains to Efe.
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According to the Los Angeles Homeless Service (LAHSA), there were 63,706 homeless people in all of Los Angeles County in 2020, 13% more than the previous year.
Los Angeles, the second most populous city in the country, after New York, is known for regularly leading the national statistics regarding the number of people living on the streets. In 2020, according to the same source, the figure rose to 41,290.
In 2021, the official count was not carried out, but civil organizations that operate in the sector throughout the county estimate that the coronavirus would have left some 90,000 people homeless.
Less than a week ago, the police evicted more than fifty people who had their stores deployed in a section of Century Boulevard that connects with the 405 freeway.
After this, some like “Killer”, a nickname by which this 40-year-old man from Inglewood who had been living in the camp for years is known, have decided to relocate just a few meters further.
“We have been here for the last two or three years, there were huge mountains of waste and the police are now worried because the Super Bowl is coming,” “Killer” tells Efe, adding that this is because “it means money for the city ”.
Others like Detlev have chosen to relocate to the area, although the police may return in the next few hours to relocate them.
“I wasn’t here when it happened, but when I got there there was nothing; it seemed as if a UFO had landed”, details this 39-year-old man who had settled in this place in the last month.
From the charity The Dreambuilders Project they informed Efe that it is unknown where they have relocated the 60 people who were camping in this area near the stadium.
“They are not detained but they have been forced to leave this part of Inglewood,” clarifies the organization’s president, Mayer Dahan.
Violence in Los Angeles, at its highest point since 2007
Violence has also grown throughout the county after the pandemic, and three weeks ago in Inglewood itself there was a shooting during a birthday party among young people that left four dead.
According to statistics from the Los Angeles Police Department, in 2020 there were 397 homicides in Los Angeles alone, which is 42 more than in 2020 and marks the highest crime record since 2007.
Of the total homicides, one in 10 (43) had a homeless person as a suspect.
While, in the reverse case, in approximately two out of 10 cases (90) it was a homeless person who lost his life. Within this statistic, 27 incidents were reported in which the victim and the alleged murderer were homeless.
Homicides, shootings, mass robberies in businesses and traffic accidents caused by illegal races have awakened a sense of insecurity in a city that believed it had its crime problem tackled after decades of constant fight against street gangs.
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