Traci Park Put a Smiley Face on Criminalizing Homelessness—Because of Course She Did

Los Angeles City Council meetings are usually filled with the usual bureaucratic drudgery—motions signed, policies debated, votes cast. But today, Traci Park did something so grotesque, so openly cruel, that it deserves everyone’s attention: she put a smiley face on a motion criminalizing homelessness.  

Out of the half-dozen motions she signed, the only one that got this little flourish was a 41.18 motion from Councilmember Katy Yaroslavsky, expanding the city's already punitive law against sitting, sleeping, or lying in certain public spaces. This law does nothing to address the root causes of homelessness. It simply forces people to move from one place to another, making it harder for them to survive. And Traci Park, who has built her career on demonizing the unhoused, thought this was worth celebrating.  

Traci Park Built Her Political Career on Hate  

None of this should come as a surprise. Park didn’t run for office on a platform of solutions. She ran on a wave of anger from wealthy property owners who didn’t want to see poor people near their multimillion-dollar homes. She moved to Venice in 2021, at a time when homelessness on the Westside was more visible than ever due to the pandemic. When COVID-19 hit, the CDC recommended that unhoused people be allowed to stay in place to slow the spread of disease. At the same time, shelters had to cut their capacity in half to allow for social distancing. Sweeps were temporarily paused, while job losses and evictions pushed more people into homelessness.  

The response from some of the Westside’s wealthiest residents was outrage. They were forced to confront the housing crisis in a way they never had before, and instead of pushing for real solutions, they demanded that encampments be cleared without any thought for where people were supposed to go. Many of them spent their work-from-home days complaining about homelessness on NextDoor and convincing themselves that visible poverty was the biggest threat to their quality of life.  

Traci Park saw an opportunity and ran with it. She described Venice as a lawless dystopia. She posted images of encampments with no regard for the people living in them. She built a campaign around the idea that homelessness wasn’t a humanitarian crisis, but a public safety threat that could be solved with more police and more punishment.  

That false, dangerous narrative helped her win a seat on the City Council. Now she’s making sure the city doubles down on cruelty.  

A Career in Criminalizing Poverty  

Since taking office, Park has wasted no time in enacting policies that push unhoused people further to the margins.  

She has expanded LAMC 41.18 zones across her district, creating dozens of new areas where sitting, sleeping, or lying down is banned, including one at the beach. The city had to remove that provision after legal advocates pointed out that it was blatantly illegal, but the fact that she tried to pass it in the first place says everything about her priorities.  

She has pushed oversized vehicle bans that make it illegal for people to sleep in their RVs or cars, even though there are no realistic alternatives for them. So far, she has banned parking on 68 street segments, knowing full well that the people displaced have nowhere else to go.  

She led an aggressive encampment sweep on Jefferson Boulevard, where she oversaw the towing of RVs with all of their owners’ possessions inside. Instead of working to get people housed, she made sure they lost what little stability they had left. Before the sweep, she blocked a motion that would have allocated over two million dollars to house the people living in RVs along Jefferson. Shortly after, one of the residents of the encampment burned to death in his RV.  

She also used a fire under the 10 Freeway as an excuse to push for more anti-homeless measures. Even though there was no proof that unhoused people were responsible for the fire, she immediately used it as justification to propose banning encampments from freeway underpasses, bridges, and tunnels. These are places where people seek shelter because they have nowhere else to go, and Park’s response was to suggest making them completely off-limits.  

Inside Safe as Political Cover  

Even when Park claims to support housing, her actions tell a different story. At first, she tried to undermine Mayor Karen Bass’ Inside Safe program by using city resources to conduct her own aggressive sweeps. But once she saw that Inside Safe could be used to clear encampments, she quickly aligned herself with it.  

The program has been widely criticized for being poorly managed and ineffective. People are forced to give up their tents on the promise of temporary shelter, then moved from one motel to another, often far from their support networks. The conditions in these motels are often unlivable, and there is no clear pathway to permanent housing.  

Park has repeatedly told constituents that Inside Safe has “housed” people when, in reality, many participants are still stuck in limbo, cycling through temporary placements with no real stability. But for Park, the important thing is that the encampments are gone. Whether the people displaced end up in permanent housing or back on the streets is not her concern.  

That Smiley Face Says It All  

Traci Park didn’t just vote for another cruel and ineffective policy today. She went out of her way to show that she was happy about it. The smiley face on that motion is not just a childish doodle. It is a deliberate message to her base, letting them know that she is still committed to making life harder for unhoused people. It is a mockery of those who are struggling to survive. It is a sign that she does not see unhoused people as human beings worthy of dignity and protection.  

This is not leadership. This is not problem-solving. This is cruelty for cruelty’s sake.