Los Angeles leaders condemned viral video of a contractor for a nonprofit organization hosing down a sidewalk as a homeless person scrambles to collect their belongings.
The video, which surfaced Thursday, appears to show someone in a high-visibility vest holding a water hose, spraying it next to a person with a blanket draped over his shoulders in the city’s Skid Row neighborhood.
Urban Alchemy, a San Francisco social enterprise that runs projects to alleviate homelessness and drug addiction, confirmed the man with the hose was working for it as a contractor and has since been fired.
“Urban Alchemy exists to lift up our communities, and to serve them with humanity and dignity, the nonprofit said in a statement on X Thursday night.
“The action being taken here is unacceptable, and completely antithetical to our training and values. The practitioner involved in this incident no longer works at Urban Alchemy.”
Urban Alchemy’s website says that its staff members are “a compassionate and peaceful presence that restore [sic] safety and cleanliness in the streets.” The website adds that many staff have served life sentences in prison.
Los Angeles City Controller Kenneth Mejia said on X that the incident was “disturbing” and added the group had received more than $14 million in city funding.
Sergio Perez, chief of accountability and oversight for the L.A. City Controller’s Office, told NBC Los Angeles: “It’s a disturbing act that shows a disregard for the dignity of the individual at the other end of the water hose.”
Perez said the controller, which acts as a watchdog on public spending, would be questioning the money given to Urban Alchemy and asking what services are given in return.
He also pointed out that despite L.A.’s warm climate, the city has more deaths among the homeless community due to hypothermia than New York.
“There’s no legitimate reason to do that to any individual, including our unhoused neighbors here in Los Angeles,” he said.
There are an estimated 91,000 homeless people in L.A. County, according to statistics from the L.A. Chamber of Commerce, the highest number for any U.S. city. At least 2,500 of those, 3% of the total, live in the 0.4 square miles of Skid Row, 50 or so blocks that covers 0.0001% of the county.
Problems in Southern California’s homeless community recently made headlines when three people were killed in December.
This isn’t the first time video has captured someone in California spraying a homeless person with a water hose.
An antiques dealer in San Francisco was seen in footage last year dousing a woman in water outside his shop and demanding that she “move.”
