LA's Inside Safe program cleans up Koreatown homeless encampment

LOS ANGELES (KABC) -- The office of Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass conducted another Inside Safe operation on Tuesday, a program designed to get the homeless off the streets and into housing.

Days before the city's Inside Safe team showed up to this Koreatown encampment, they had already met with the residents, getting to know them and earning their trust.

While a sanitation crew cleaned up the encampment, the men and women who lived here were being checked by the USC Street Medicine team.

They were put on a bus and taken to an Inside Safe transitional housing facility.

According to the city, Inside Safe has helped 3,000 homeless people get into transitional housing.

Working with the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority or LAHSA, Inside Safe goes out to the encampments reaching out to the men and women living on the streets..

This was the 63rd encampment that was cleaned up and its residents taken off the street.

Tuesday, Inside Safe worked with at least 12 unhoused people they've been getting to know.

They were also able to help out those who saw what was going on and asked for help.

Annetta Wells with Inside Safe says "Anyone else who's not on that list, on the day of when they come up we have LAHSA who's our partner, their engagement team deals with ... if we have additional rooms we'll get those people into those rooms."

One of the things the men and women you see here helping out the homeless is dealing with their fears of accepting help to get off the streets.

Annetta Wells told us "most of them are a little scared because they don't know what to expect. Is it really real? Am I going to get to go into the site? What they find out is that people from the encampment community will validate. It's true, I'm here and I've been getting help, come on in."

The latest homeless count finds about 45,000 people living on the streets in Los Angeles - a drop of 11% from last year.