After visiting my boyfriend’s family this weekend in Los Angeles I was shocked to see a homeless encampment had disappeared from the freeway over pass near their neighborhood. This freeway over pass served as a make shift shelter for quite a few homeless individuals over the past five months. They had set up around five to six tents and seem to keep to themselves. I had asked my boyfriend’s family if they knew what had happened to the encampment and they responded that a neighborhood organization had worked with city officials to get them removed. Before learning all that we have so far in this course I, like many others in that neighborhood, would have wanted the homeless encampment to be moved because it made the neighborhood look bad. Having the encampment near a neighborhood does not mean that the neighborhood is more dangerous, yet many in that neighborhood were scared of the crime that the homeless were bringing into their neighborhood. When I tried to speak about other possible options regarding the homeless encampment my boyfriend’s family was taken back. They refused to entertain any other possibility other than removing the encampment from their neighborhood. They did not feel safe or conformable living so close to a homeless encampment. This experience this weekend let me see how much I have learned about homelessness through this course so far but it also showed me how difficult it can be to talk with others about homelessness when they are feeling that their space is being invaded.