Tucked behind some brush and a makeshift plastic wall just feet away from Burbank Boulevard one cold and rainy February night, 63-year-old Mark Kline sat at the door of his tent watching the water level rise.

Whoever was pulling the strings at the Sepulveda Dam half a mile east better open the doors soon, he hoped to himself, and allow the menacing pool around him to flow into the Los Angeles River.

Yet the dam operator is tasked with preventing river overflow down south, not protecting an ad hoc neighborhood of dozens of camps that stretch just over a mile from the dam to Hayvenhurst Avenue. When the dam doors didn’t open for close to another hour, ice cold rainwater rushed into the meticulous shelter that Kline, 63, built and shared with his partner Sharon Rice, 60, and their dog Babygirl.

It was the third time in two weeks the couple got flooded, drenching everything they owned in rainwater imbued with toxic runoff and human waste.

The couple is well aware that the Sepulveda Flood Basin, part of the network of dams built in the early 1940’s to protect the Los Angeles basin from catastrophic flooding, was designed to fill to the brim during heavy rainfall.

Yet since the early 2000s, between 20 and a hundred people at any given time have decided to call the basin home and even give it something of a paradoxical nickname – ‘The Bamboos’. That may sound like a hotel or tropical-themed restaurant bar combo, but come rain season the small creek west of the dam becomes a heart-wrenching and stomach churning mess.

The latest storms have left a path of destruction for homeless who had been living in the Sepulveda Flood basin. (Photo by David Crane, Los Angeles Daily News/SCNG)

The latest storms have left a path of destruction for homeless who had been living in the Sepulveda Flood basin. (Photo by David Crane, Los Angeles Daily News/SCNG)

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Homeless advocate Paul Reed looks over the destruction of the secluded area known as “The Bamboos,” within the flood basin off of Burbank Boulevard. A group of homeless people live in the area, which is overtaken by flood waters during heavy rains. (Photo by David Crane, Los Angeles Daily News/SCNG)

“Baby Girl” waits for her owners as they sort through what they can salvage after recent storms flooded their encampment in the secluded area known as “The Bamboos” within the flood basin off of Burbank Boulevard. (Photo by David Crane, Los Angeles Daily News/SCNG)

Debris sits in the shadow of the Sepulveda Dam after recent storms. The dam controls flow of water downstream in the LA River during heavy rains. (Photo by David Crane, Los Angeles Daily News/SCNG)



Homeless advocate Paul Reed wanders through what is left of a homeless encampment after flood waters in recent storms overtook the area. Hundreds of homeless people live in the secluded area known as “The Bamboos,” within the flood basin off of Burbank Boulevard. They all had to flee during flooding from the last round of storms leaving all of the their belongings behind. (Photo by David Crane, Los Angeles Daily News/SCNG)

The latest storms have left a path of destruction for homeless who had been living in the Sepulveda Flood basin. During heavy rains the dam is closed to control downstream flows causing the area to flood, sometimes in minutes. The hundreds of homeless who live in the secluded area known as “the Bamboos” flee leaving everything behind. (Photo by David Crane, Los Angeles Daily News/SCNG)

Bob Aldridge, who has lived in the secluded area known as “The Bamboos” within the flood basin off of Burbank Boulevard for the last two years, managed to stay in his spot during the last series of storms. (Photo by David Crane, Los Angeles Daily News/SCNG)

Bob Aldridge, who has lived in the secluded area known as “The Bamboos” within the flood basin off of Burbank Boulevard for the last two years, managed to stay in his spot during the last series of storms. The flood waters rose within minutes and Aldridge salvaged what he could and moved to higher ground. (Photo by David Crane, Los Angeles Daily News/SCNG)

Bob Aldridge, who has lived in the secluded area known as “The Bamboos” within the flood basin off of Burbank Boulevard for the last two years, managed to stay in his spot during the last series of storms. The flood waters rose within minutes and Aldridge salvaged what he could and moved to higher ground. Los Angeles Daily News/SCNG)



The latest storms left a path of destruction for homeless people who had been living in the Sepulveda Flood basin. During heavy rains the basin is closed to control downstream flows causing the area to flood, sometimes in minutes. The hundreds of homeless who live in the secluded area known as “The Bamboos” flee, leaving everything behind. (Photo by David Crane, Los Angeles Daily News/SCNG)

Though dry in this photo, the Sepulveda Dam fills with water during heavy rains so that the flow of water downstream in the LA River can be controlled. Homeless people living in the flood basin sometimes have only minutes to clear out before the rising water engulfs their camps. (Photo by David Crane, Los Angeles Daily News/SCNG)

Personal belongings are scattered in the shadow of the Sepulveda Dam, pictured here in the background. During heavy rains, homeless campers in the area have only minutes to clear out before flood waters overtake the area. (Photo by David Crane, Los Angeles Daily News/SCNG)

Clancy, 57, recalls losing everything in just a few minutes when the Sepulveda flood basin filled with water during heavy rains. Clancy is one of, at times, hundreds of homeless who live in the secluded area known as “The Bamboos” within the flood basin off of Burbank Boulevard. After the last storm, he salvaged what he could and moved to higher ground, closer to the roadway. (Photo by David Crane, Los Angeles Daily News/SCNG)

The basin, mechanically driven past by thousands of San Fernando Valley commuters every day, is isolated during the year’s warmer months, even peaceful. But harsh, wet winters like this one aggravate the serious environmental, biological and logistical side-effects of human habitation, and illuminate the failures of a convoluted patchwork of local and federal agencies responsible for the site.

Welcome to the ‘The Bamboos’

People living in the basin – whether they be long-homeless couples actively looking for permanent housing or fugitives just passing through – say that ‘The Bamboos’ is a far more desirable place than your average freeway underpass or Skid Row street encampment. In the basin, there’s privacy, freedom and community.

“This here is like a five star hotel compared to a lot of places,” said local homeless advocate Paul Read, who regularly brings hot meals, donated clothes and hygiene supplies to the Basin with a group of friends.

Police and residents tend to stay out of the small valley of trees and perennial grasses, say inhabitants, and encampments are even less visible from Burbank Boulevard in the spring when tree cover shields their tarps and shopping carts from view.

Next door, the Sepulveda Recreation Area and Wildlife Reserve is host to a handful of golf courses, Japanese garden and the San Fernando Valley Flyers club field. Just a short walk from Kline’s camp is the Hjelte Sports Center, home to the West Valley 55-and-over softball league.

Yet in the coldest February in Los Angeles since 1962 according the National Weather Service, after snowfall in the San Fernando Valley and months of above average rain with more on the way, now is not a good time to live in ‘The Bamboos.’

When Kline and Rice’s tent got drenched beyond repair, they decided to crash with a friend on the northern, higher end of ‘The Bamboos’. They had moved it to higher ground for the third time, and felt desperate. Normally they wouldn’t abandon camp for fear of things getting stolen.

“I put a year’s worth of making it a home for us and it all just washes away,” said Kline, sitting on a cooler outside the friend’s where he and Rice had been staying for a week.

Kline is a broad-shouldered Huntington Park native, who said he sought refuge in the basin over a year ago after moving around other Los Angeles encampments every few days for six years. He considers basin fillup “the only downside” to this spot. “We don’t get bothered by the cops hardly ever.”

The Dam itself was built by the Army Corps of Engineers in 1941 as part of a massive civic response to the 1938 flood in Los Angeles that killed more than 100 people. It’s designed to collect flood runoff from the drainage areas upstream, store it temporarily in the basin and then release it into the L.A. river at a controlled rate.

According to statements released by the Corps of Engineers during heavy rainfall, the doors remain open as normal as a bout of rain begins, allowing water to pass through. But once the LA River channel downstream reaches capacity, the gates close – creating that pool of rising water outside Kline’s tent.

As the gates reopen, water rushes back downstream and wreaks havoc along the basin’s pathways of tents, treehouses and shopping carts. It creates a sprawling sea of wet debris and garbage, from overturned shopping carts to clothes and TVs and car parts. Whether they are stolen or dumped by passerby, it all runs into the L.A. river. There are no bathrooms here.

“I don’t have another place to go, and if there was one I’d be there,” said Kline, who is looking into transitional housing options but said he’s concerned about securing income at his age and physical condition. He said he lost his small construction business in the aftermath of the financial crisis.

Clancy, the friend hosting the couple, suggested people have been living in the basin as early as the late 90’s. But isn’t interested in permanent housing options. “I’ve been homeless all my life and never held a job for for than 90 days,” he said. “I’m a thief, I do drugs, I stay up all night. You can’t live this way in the normal world, but here it’s acceptable.”

Out of sight, out of mind

Although the basin is federally owned and managed by the Corps of Engineers, it is partially leased to the City of L.A., meaning the Bureau of Sanitation is tasked with anything to do with cleaning the site and LAPD with law enforcement.

In confronting challenges posed by the Sepulveda Basin’s homeless population, the patchwork of agencies tasked with responsibility appear to point fingers at one another.

“There’s always a kind of ‘that’s your land, no that’s your land,’ because it belongs to the corps and they lease to the city but they’re requesting city resources for a cleanup,” said LAHSA supervisor Matthew Tenchavez. He deploys outreach teams to encampments like the Basin.

In February 2017, the Corps pulled together those agencies along with homeless outreach groups to do its most recent site cleanup, said spokesperson Thomas Field. He speculated that another cleanup would take place in the fall.

“We’re trying to make it more routine, just not on specific time frame” he said of cleanups, in hopes of “making the basin less desirable for the homeless.”

“It’s dangerous to be there and they shouldn’t be there,” he said of basin dwellers.

“This is a sensitive natural habitat in some areas so we have to be careful when we go in and move debris or trash. We have to protective of workers and the environment,” added Field. “This isn’t just toxic material but hazardous material.”

Yet the core issue isn’t cleaning up the mess, suggested Tenchavez, it’s where people go when they’re forced to leave ‘The Bamboos.’

“If you do a cleanup and put up ‘no trespassing’ signs people are going to get dispersed into surrounding neighborhoods,” he said, which makes it even more difficult to get them into shelters and often prompts the ire of local residents.

A homeless count in 2018 conducted by the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority (LAHSA) found that while the population of people without a permanent or stable roof over their heads in Los Angeles County fell by 3 percent, the San Fernando Valley saw a 6 percent increase. That agency estimates the Valley’s homeless population at 7,773 people.

Based on that number, there is a severe shortage of shelters, transitional housing or permanent housing for homeless in the San Fernando Valley.

Tenchavez’s outreach team will suggest to ‘Bamboos’ dwellers that they make their way to a pick-up point for the nearest and only winter homeless shelter in the Valley in Pacoima, with rain is on the forecast. That shelter has around 100 beds. The only local transitional housing site, on Lankershim Boulevard, has 60 spots.

“This is an out-of-sight-out-of-mind-type of environment,” said Tenchavez. “We only have one or two success stories where someone was permanently housed from here … I think a lot of the reason why is because there’s a sense of community and high influence of illegal substances around there,” noting evidence of heavy heroin use.

For their part, Kline and Rice said they think they’ve nearly overstayed their welcome at Clancy’s place, but hadn’t found a new spot as of last week. “The water was 5 feet high, like those guys from the cranberry commercial,” reflected Rice on getting flooded, as she lovingly pet Babygirl.

What does she think about the commuters who drive past her every day on Burbank? She answered, “I don’t think people understand that we’re actually trying to live down here.”