Resources & Roots

Books, Reports, and Presentations

We Live in Public: Encampments as Resistance and Revolutionary Care in Los Angeles (November 2026)
A book edited by by Carla Orendorff, Anthony Orendorff, Lupita Limon Corrales, Ananya Roy, and Marisa Lemorande. Pre-order your copy today! 

“Keep Moving”: West LA Vehicle Residents Survey (June 2025)  
Conducted by Venice Justice Committee organizers over a one year period beginning in early 2024, the survey asked 99 vehicle residents in West Los Angeles questions about pathways to vehicle residency and resident demographics, experiences with governing authorities and social services, vehicle condition and mobility, and shelter/housing program experiences and preferences, among other related topics. The report finds that the policies employed by city and county authorities to resolve visible instances of vehicular homelessness often harm vehicle residents and don’t deliver on their promises. The vehicle dwelling is a personal safety net in the absence of a sufficient social safety net. But vehicle residents are forced into adopting mobility due to various forms of criminalization, with social services outreach both inadequate and inconsistent. While governments across California and beyond expand policies of displacement and dispossession of vehicle residents, parking stability paired with supportive services that enable access to affordable housing offers an alternative vision. Methodologically, the West LA Vehicle Residents Survey is a testament to the power of community-engaged scholarship to challenge dominant narratives and policy paradigms.

Community Audit of the Mayor's Inside Safe Program (July 2024) 

A report written by Palms Unhoused Mutual Aid, Mar Vista Voice, South Bay Mutual Aid & Care Club, Food for Comrades, Fairfax Mutual Aid, Aetna Street Solidarity, and LA Street Care and Mutual Aid. 

We Do Not Forget: Stolen Lives of LA’s Unhoused During the COVID-19 Pandemic (December 2021)

This report, undertaken by the After Echo Park Lake research collective, was homework assigned by unhoused comrades, especially those who are part of UTACH, Unhoused Tenants Against Carceral Housing. While the stark reality of unhoused deaths has long been a matter of concern, the COVID-19 pandemic brought surprising new challenges. As the report shows, in addition to deaths on the street, there were also deaths in hotels and motels, including in the emergency housing program, Project Roomkey. A large proportion of hotel/motel deaths are attributed by the coroner to drug and alcohol overdoses, a finding in keeping with general trends in unhoused deaths. As the report argues, it is crucially important to understand such deaths as evidence of the dislocation and trauma caused by housing insecurity and displacement as well as by carceral isolation in shelter and emergency housing programs. Drawing on the organizing by UTACH, Unhoused Tenants Against Carceral Housing, the report amplifies the demand for unconditional and humane permanent housing.

Press

As Fentanyl Overdoses Soar, LA City Crews Toss State-Funded Narcan from Encampments by Jack Ross (February 2024)

Mutual aid groups release scathing community audit of LA Mayor’s “Inside Safe” program by Elizabeth Chou (July 2024)

Swept Away: What Cities Really Take When They Sweep Homeless Encampments by Ruth Talbot, Asia Fields, Nicole Santa Cruz and Maya Miller (October 2024)

Organizations

The After Echo Park Lake Research Collective and Archive Collective
The After Echo Park Lake Research Collective brings together university and movement-based scholars with unhoused comrades to study displacement in Los Angeles. We analyze and challenge systems of housing insecurity and scrutinize the investment of public resources in the criminalization of poverty and in carceral housing. Our research is a counterpoint to racial banishment and seeks to advance housing justice in Los Angeles and worldwide.

The After Echo Park Lake Archive Collective formed as a project joining university and movement-based scholars to collectively archive an organized encampment community that lived at Echo Park Lake from Fall 2018 until March 2021. The archive’s intent is to make historical record of this community’s practice of collective organization from beginning to end and beyond, documenting the politics, culture, and economy of people whose own histories are excluded from the official record.

The Aetna Street Research Collective
The Aetna Street research collective brings together current and former residents of the Aetna Street encampment in Van Nuys, Los Angeles, with movement and university-based scholars to study and support the struggle for spatial justice by unhoused communities. Colloquially known as the “Skid Row of the valley,” Aetna Street is a key site of refuge and return in the face of state-organized displacement.

Mar Vista Voice
Mar Vista Voice is a community organization connecting over 50,000 people on the Westside. They help neighbors engage in local mutual aid and direct action campaigns, highlight grassroots work, and create a platform for people to tell their stories. They also track the Mar Vista Community Council and LA City Council, synthesizing legislative activity so you know where our representatives stand on the issues.

Mutual Aid Los Angeles Network (MALAN)
Mutual Aid LA Network (MALAN) is a connector and information hub for mutual aid efforts, people and resources across Los Angeles. They’re building toward abolition and believe in an abundant world that can be freed of oppression through community solidarity.

SuperStorm Research Lab Mutual Aid Research Collective

The Superstorm Research Lab (SRL) is a mutual aid research and writing collective working to understand the changes in how New York City policy actors, NGO leaders, activists, volunteers, and residents are thinking about social, economic and environmental issues following Hurricane Sandy.