Two days before the impending move and Lavon Johnson had yet to pack.
But the Iraq war veteran didn’t seem too worried as he sat at the piano he’d rescued from the trash two blocks away. He began to play Beethoven’s “Für Elise” along San Vicente Boulevard near Brentwood. His American flag — held up on one side by a hanger attached to his tent — waved in the breeze.
Johnson planned to be the last one out of the Veterans Row encampment, where he has lived for about a year. His way of ensuring that the nearly two dozen unhoused veterans remaining made it out safe before a scheduled cleanup on Monday.
“It never takes me long to get ready,” the 35-year-old said with a quick smile.
The encampment, adjacent to the historic Veterans Affairs campus in West Los Angeles, has become a focal point for homelessness in the city, with mayoral candidates making visits regularly over the last year. The last census of homeless people in Los Angeles County found roughly 3,900 homeless veterans among the county’s total of 66,000 people without housing.
Veterans Affairs Secretary Denis McDonough, who visited the encampment in October, said last week that the about 40 veterans from Veterans Row would be housed by November.
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