City of Tents ep. 1: Welcome to Veterans Row, who lives here?

Military veterans who lived at the Veterans Row homeless encampment made sure it had a neat, orderly and patriotic look to it. Photo by Zaydee Sanchez.

As LA’s homeless population has increased to nearly 42,000, the encampments have become one of the biggest political flashpoints in the city, and have pitted neighbor against neighbor in ideological fights over what to do about them. That was the case with an encampment in Brentwood along San Vicente Boulevard. Here, all of the tents had American flags pinned to the front, and all of the people living there were veterans. 

KCRW reporter Anna Scott spent a year and half reporting the story of this encampment, how it got there, how it consumed a whole neighborhood and changed lives, and how it was eventually disbanded. Her reporting is now a new KCRW podcast called “City of Tents: Veterans Row.”

Episode one introduces listeners to some of the residents and how they got there, plus how their Brentwood neighbors felt.