‘Blight,’ Cameras, Reaction: Film Set Irks True Transients

Those glancing from their office windows may have figured that Los Angeles’ homelessness problem was growing faster than anyone thought.

Overnight, a vast homeless encampment popped up at one of downtown’s busiest intersections.

There were tents, plastic tarps and old shopping carts stuffed with clothing, bottles and cans. They lined all four sides of the intersection of Hill and 4th streets, next to the city’s high-rise district.

But this was one encampment where no homeless people were allowed.

The street scene was fake. A film crew built it as a backdrop for “Southland Tales,” an independent feature-length thriller that depicts Los Angeles on the brink of social, environmental and economic disaster in 2008.

Actors portraying homeless people inhabited the encampment as action scenes were shot Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights. The movie stars Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, Seann William Scott and Sarah Michelle Gellar.

Security guards were posted to shoo away real street people who hoped to scavenge through the props for recyclables and usable clothing.

Some of the homeless were angry that actors were portraying them.

“I’m offended,” said Charlie Jackson. “You’ve got people down there who are really homeless and they’re paying actors to play them. They’re importing people to be homeless. That’s shameful.

“I’m sleeping right around the corner on the ground. They’re not offering me a job. If they did, I’d take it.”

Another homeless man, Jesse J. Richardson, agreed, scoffing at the make-believe encampment as he pulled a small wire cart filled with empty bottles.

“This is why homeless are homeless,” he said of the employment issue. “And all of this -- of course it’s phony.”

It seemed plenty real to other passersby, though.

“It looks like the homeless are moving on up. It used to be that you’d only see this sort of thing further east,” said Rita Roth, a church worker who lives in Hollywood, surveying the tents and tarps on a grassy patch near a Red Line subway entrance on Hill Street.

“It looks authentic to me. There are homeless who hang out here every day,” said Rosemead resident Amanda Garcia, who works as a law clerk in a nearby 36-story tower.

Another high-rise employee, accounting firm secretary Juanita Watson, said that at first she thought the encampment was disaster-related.

“I thought it might be hurricane evacuees,” the Crenshaw district resident said as she inspected tents on 4th Street. “This stuff is too clean to be for L.A. homeless.”

The movie’s production company declined to comment about why actual transients weren’t used in the filming. But one source close to the production suggested it had to do with union rules regarding the use of actors.

As many as 11,000 homeless people are thought to live in the downtown area, primarily in a 50 block area bounded by Alameda Street on the east, 7th Street on the south, Main Street on the west and 3rd Street on the north. Although many live in rehabilitated hotels and shelters, others sleep in tents and cardboard boxes on sidewalks.

The filming came amid controversy over an allegation by Los Angeles police that the county Sheriff’s Department and several suburban police agencies have been observed “dumping” homeless people from their jurisdictions on downtown streets.

The film set was reminiscent of one that caused controversy in 2002 in the Art District near Little Tokyo. A crew shooting a TV show created a grimly realistic homeless encampment in front of a gallery the same night that a painter had scheduled a show designed to attract Westside art patrons.

Scenes shot at Hill and 4th included the crash of an ice cream truck and a car explosion, security guard Marc Torres said Saturday.

He said the film crew planned to dismantle the encampment today.

“Passersby think it’s sort of funny that they brought the homeless here. I find it ironic and sad,” Torres said.

As if on cue, passerby Kathy Tayeri paused on Hill Street to study the tents and tarps.

“Why did they go to all this trouble?” asked Tayeri, a Burbank waitress.

“The real McCoy is right down that block. And that block, and that block.”