Benito Flores, who greater than 5 years in the past seized a state-owned house in El Sereno to protest in opposition to homelessness in Los Angeles, has died.
A 70-year-old retired welder, Flores had been preventing to stay within the house. Final month, he and a gaggle of supporters prevented Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Division deputies from evicting him from a small duplex on a slender road in El Sereno.
As a part of the eviction protection, Flores constructed an elaborate tree home 28 ft excessive in an ash tree within the house’s yard, the place he deliberate to retreat if police tried to haul him out.
Within the six weeks because the failed eviction try, Flores continued to fortify the property, together with constructing further defenses in a second tree within the yard. Supporters consider that Flores died after falling out of that tree.
On Friday afternoon, a neighbor discovered him unresponsive on the bottom close to the tree along with his security harness damaged, mentioned Roberto Flores, who operates a non-public group middle in El Sereno and helped set up the continuing protests.
“He’s a martyr for human rights, for the first rate proper of housing for everybody,” mentioned Roberto Flores, who is just not associated to Benito.
Benito Flores was the ultimate holdout in a protest that captured nationwide curiosity when it started in March 2020.
Flores and a dozen others occupied empty houses owned by the California Division of Transportation, which the company acquired by the a whole bunch a half-century in the past for a freeway growth that by no means occurred.
The activists, who name themselves “Reclaiming Our Properties,” argued that the true crime wasn’t breaking into empty homes, however quite that publicly owned houses had been left vacant whereas tens of hundreds of individuals lived on the streets of Los Angeles.
Backed by a wave of public help, the dozen “Reclaimers” had been allowed to remain legally in Caltrans-owned houses for 2 years via a short lived lease settlement managed by the Housing Authority of the Metropolis of Los Angeles. When that expired in late 2022, Flores and lots of Reclaimers tried to stay within the properties, saying the options provided by the housing authority had been inadequate to maintain them completely housed.
However as eviction threats mounted, a number of the protesters started accepting settlements to go away and others had been evicted. Flores continued the combat.
He informed The Occasions on the eve of the June eviction try that he needed to make a press release about political leaders failing to offer housing for all who want it. Flores suffered from diabetes and mentioned if he was eliminated he would have had no different choice besides to sleep in his van — the place he lived for 14 years earlier than the house seizure.
“Who is meant to offer everlasting housing to elders, disabled and households with youngsters?” Flores informed The Occasions final month. “It’s the metropolis and the state. And they’re evicting me.”
About 50 mourners gathered at Flores’ house Friday night time for a vigil and ceremony honoring his life and activism. His physique, lined with a white sheet, remained within the yard and supporters positioned flowers on it after paying their respects.
The official explanation for loss of life stays below investigation. Personnel from the L.A. County Medical Examiner arrived on the property Friday night to take away the physique and start their examination.
