Blueprint For the Future: Unhoused Tenant Organizing in Los Angeles

Abstract

During the Covid-19 pandemic, an organized encampment at Echo Park Lake in Los Angeles built community infrastructure that articulated a clear vision of a world built on class solidarity. But the success of the community also made it a threat to the racial capitalist order, and in March of 2021, the city deployed hundreds of riot police to mass evict the encampment and fence the park. This strategy became a blueprint for displacement replicated across the city, one in which services were conjoined to enforcement. But those who organized at Echo Park Lake continued the fight, creating their own blueprint for the ongoing fight for housing liberation.