Multiple Drug Busts Highlight Los Angeles’s Broader Struggle With RVs, Encampments

As officials remain divided over solutions, multiple LAPD busts in a 24-hour period point to an entrenched problem.

A woman walks past a homeless encampment in the Venice neighborhood in Los Angeles on Feb. 18, 2022. John Fredricks/The Epoch Times

The Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) last week announced the arrest of two individuals accused of selling narcotics within a homeless encampment. The suspects allegedly had been running an operation out of a recreational vehicle (RV) parked next to the encampment, in an area of Westlake that’s “well known” for drug-related crimes, according to the LAPD’s Rampart Division.

Late last month, a series of search warrants led police to the RV, where they seized $147,987 in cash, cocaine, and a handgun.