Drugs, crime and homelessness plague MacArthur Park. Can a fence rescue it?

On a brisk sunny morning in MacArthur Park recently, children played on a jungle gym as an open-air drug market operated nearby. Beside the park’s lake — which has witnessed more than a few bodies pulled from its murky depths — vendors prepared stuffed arepas for hungry patrons.

For years, the famed park has served as an urban oasis for thousands of Westlake residents hemmed in by concrete and asphalt. At the same time, however, the city has battled waves of gang violence, drug trafficking and growing homelessness.

Now, amid a city campaign to reduce crime in the neighborhood, officials have announced plans to erect a $2.3-million fence around the park — a proposal that has ignited debate within City Hall and among residents over the best way to keep the 35-acre green space accessible and safe for everyone.

Depending on whom you ask, the project will either improve safety or make it more difficult for residents to visit the park or to provide outreach services for the homeless people there.

The Los Angeles Board of Recreation and Park Commissioners voted unanimously Oct. 16 to approve the conceptual phase of the project as a way to address “ongoing public safety and quality-of-life challenges” that make it difficult for the city to perform maintenance and continue park improvements.

The board, which is appointed by the mayor’s office, did not elaborate on the challenges, but the park has long been a gathering place for homeless people who often experience mental health issues. It’s also become known for open-air drug sales. Last summer, a Long Beach man was stabbed to death near the park, and on Labor Day a man’s body was pulled from park lake.

Local business owners say the park’s problems scare off customers.

“The homeless want to live here but then they don’t have any shame,” said a business owner at a nearby shop, who declined to give his name for fear of retaliation. “I don’t think a fence will go far enough to solve our problems.”

Councilmember Eunisses Hernandez, who represents the district, did not propose the fence but supports the project, according to a spokesperson. Her office said she has invested in outreach workers, cleaning teams, violence-prevention workers and other programs to address the ongoing safety issues in the park.

“Access to safe, beautiful public spaces should be a right for everyone, not a luxury reserved only for wealthy neighborhoods,” Hernandez said in a statement. “For too long, families in this low-income, immigrant community have seen park improvements fade before they could enjoy them.”

A man with a fly rod casts his line into the lake at MacArthury park in July.

(Carlin Stiehl/Los Angeles Times)

Hernandez did not make herself available for an interview, but through a spokesperson, her office said the fence proposal, along with $27 million in Care First Community Investment funds secured by her office, are all part of a larger effort to give everyone access to clean, safe parks.

The neighborhood around MacArthur Park is made up predominantly of working-class, low-income tenants who speak Spanish as their first language. MacArthur Park — named for Gen. Douglas MacArthur — is the largest green space in an otherwise urban neighborhood.

The park is split by Wilshire Boulevard and includes a band shell, a soccer field, a lake, a children’s playground and a recreation center.

On a daily basis, the park is flanked by street vendors cooking meals on propane grills or selling goods from the trunks of their cars. Homeless people live in or around the park, many sleeping on the grassy knolls by the water. LAPD officers patrol the area on foot even as rampant drug use plays out in the open and adults and children cut through the park to get to the nearby Metro station or to visit a playground in the park.

A couple walks past a row of homeless tents along Wilshire Boulevard near MacArthur Park.

(Genaro Molina/Los Angeles Times)

While the design portion of the fence project is expected to be done by the end of the year, the final cost, the height of the fence, the access points, the hours when gates would be open to the public and the date of completion have yet to be announced. The city’s parks department did not immediately respond to requests for comment about the project or a timeline for any future public forums.

Advocacy group representatives say the park is the best place to provide services to those homeless people with untreated mental health issues, drug addiction or other problems.

Elham Jalayer, harm reduction director with the social services group Bienestar, said a fence would further criminalize the homeless and give the city an excuse to push people out of the neighborhood.

“We in the harm reduction community know that the more isolated people are, the higher a risk there is of overdose deaths because they are less likely to seek services,” Jalayer said.

Dmitri Spider Davila, associate director with LA Community Health Project, said outreach workers at the park staple naloxone to the trees as a way to distribute the medication used to reverse the effects of an opioid overdose.

A field medicine team with Los Angeles Christian Health Centers and The People Concern arriving at MacArthur Park to provide care and supplies to people in need.

(Christina House/Los Angeles Times)

“If we don’t know where these people are and we can’t hand them naloxone, lives are going to be lost because of this,” Davila said about the fence. “That money [for the fence] could be better used by funding people that provide services to the people in the park, rather than just moving them out.”

Most of the speakers during the Oct. 16 commission meeting spoke in opposition to the project, saying a fence is not the way to address safety concerns.

Others, including resident Daniel Franzese, spoke in support.

“This fence could support healing the wound of this park,” he said.

“I think it is beautiful. I think it is a gem of the city, but I feel like it suffers,” Franzese said.

Raul Claros, business consultant and candidate seeking to unseat Hernandez in the June election, told the commission that he believes $2.3 million is just the start of the city’s investment to rescue MacArthur Park. Claros said he supports more drastic measures, including arming park rangers.

“Everyone wants a safe, clean park,” Claros told The Times. “But having an open-air drug space, that has now become a de facto hospital for the people there, is just not working out.”

This summer, MacArthur Park became the site of a federal show of force when a cadre of masked immigration agents stormed the park in armored vehicles and on horseback. It’s unclear how many people were detained in the July operation.

Street vendors in the area said the operation scared them, but the park still offers a steady stream of commuters who stop to grab a bite to eat while on the way to catch a bus or a train. It would be difficult to find another place to serve people, socialize and make money by selling food, they say.

The skyline of downtown Los Angeles is reflected in the lake at MacArthur Park in 2015.

(Ricardo DeAratanha/Ricardo DeAratanha/Ricardo DeAratanha/Los Angeles T)

“I can’t picture a fence,” Belen Dominguez said on the sidewalk across from the park as she served up hot arepas to her customers. “Maybe it’s for the best that it’s open. My mind isn’t made up, but I’m not sure what purpose it would serve.”