A woman known as the “governor” of downtown Los Angeles’ infamous Skid Row neighborhood has blasted city officials who vandalized her luxury tent last week.
Stephanie Arnold Williams has blasted the destruction of her luxurious apartment — dubbed the White House — though she also owns a small home nearby.
The brash tramp’s former mansion featured a hot tub, generator, solar panels, toilet, kitchenette, sewing machines, and walk-in closet.
In a video posted to Twitter a week before authorities moved in, Williams showed off her home in a manner similar to that featured in the popular MTV series Cribs. “Every person should have one… You might as well get it right,” Williams said as she draped herself over her pristine white sheets.
“I call it the White House because the government isn’t doing its job properly, so I’m here to show them how to do it…they just sit around a round table and talk about things that don’t work,” she added added .
Stephanie Williams shows off her hot tub in a video recently posted on TikTok
In the recent video, Williams said, “Every person should have one… You might as well get it right.”
A crowd gathered to watch as the house, known locally as the White House, was taken away
The canopy of William’s house is loaded onto the back of a dump truck
William’s hot tub was one of the many items that were destroyed
The mother-of-four’s home was vandalized as part of a so-called “routine cleanup” by the Department of Sanitation & Environment, reports ABC Los Angeles.
The station described crews dismantling several homeless encampments along Skid Row. Camera captured the moments when a dump truck crane grabbed the canopy of William’s tent.
The canopy was then loaded into the truck along with the floor and walls of the house.
“So I built my house on wheels here. I wanted to start building it for the homeless. They don’t want tiny houses here,” Williams told the assembled reporters.
Speaking to the Los Angeles Times, Williams said, “I said wait a minute, it’s on wheels. I can push it around the corner. We can shove it on the street. We can do a lot of things besides tearing it down.”
On her Facebook page, Williams references one of her jobs as a “freedom fighter with Stop Police Brutality Now.”
Williams told social issues publication Red Canary in a 2022 interview that she moved to Skid Row from her native Indianapolis in 2013 after becoming involved in a “beef” with local police.
She said that an Indianapolis police officer broke her leg during an altercation in which she was accused of breaking into her son’s home.
“We called the police because we were having a family argument, and when they came in they said, ‘I hate black people,'” Williams said. She further claimed that an officer handcuffed her and then broke her leg.
The pristine white sheets and bedspreads in William’s home
Williams spoke to the media on the day her home was destroyed
Crews sweeping up the debris after the destruction of William’s home
In an interview with LA Magazine, Williams said that on February 13, the day her home was vandalized, members of the Los Angeles Police Department surrounded it.
“They didn’t offer me an apartment. You didn’t offer me anything. They took my blankets, my contact lenses, all my food. They threw away pots and pans and cups and things that I needed to eat,” Williams told the magazine.
She went on to say that she was notified 30 minutes before the destruction and spent most of the time protesting to police officers.
A GoFundMe page was set up by William’s assistant, Debra Reed, to help her get back on her feet.
Williams also said that she is known locally as either The Governor or Mama Stephanie. In November 2020, she wrote in a Facebook post that she had suffered a stroke.
“I set up tents around me while people wait for shelter. There are also protesters and a community watch team to help monitor the community. And we are our own safety,” Williams continued.
“It was callous, it was mean and in many ways it was calculating. They had no less than 12 to 15 cops, they had heavy equipment and that [sanitation crews] came out to essentially tear down that corner while the tents remained standing across the street,” a witness to the demolition, Pete White, told the Los Angeles Times.
Williams pictured on her Facebook page before moving to Skid Row in 2013
Williams posted this photo shortly after suffering a stroke in November 2020
The Times article goes on to say that a spokesman for the Department of Public Works said all of Williams’ belongings could be picked up at a warehouse.
“News footage and video on social media showed a dump truck crane damaging canopies as it lifted them off the sidewalk and crews throwing away tables used for food and clothing distribution,” the Times reported.
Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass pledged in 2022 to put over 17,000 homeless people into shelters in its first year through a mix of temporary and permanent facilities.
On the same day as the LA Magazine interview, Williams spoke with a representative for the Mayor’s Office of Homelessness, Jarvis Emerson. He told Williams that he was unaware of the planned destruction.
“I put wheels in my house so you can clean underneath. I’m the one who gets on my hands and knees and scrubs this floor with a mop. I use a toothbrush to get into cracks. There is not even a cigarette butt on this floor. I’m the best cleaner,” Williams said in her interview.
Earlier this week, Culver City officials voted three-to-two Monday to shut down tents and other structures — and the change will go into effect as more housing models for the homeless become available, including a Project Room Key site and a designated homeless area in Virginia parking lot.
Culver City is west of Los Angeles.
In total, around 100,000 people live without shelter in California. With other high concentrations in the northern part of the state in cities like San Francisco, where nearly 8,000 people are sleeping on the streets.
Homelessness is very visible across California as people live in tents and cars and sleep outdoors on sidewalks and under freeway overpasses.
Mayor Bass pledged to house people and build more homes so residents can see a real difference that hasn’t been seen despite spending billions on programs to curb homelessness, including $1.2 billion in the current city budget.
The leading cause of death among homeless people in Los Angeles is a drug overdose, with other major causes including homicide and suicide.
Between 2016 and 2021, fentanyl overdose deaths in Los Angeles County increased a whopping 1,280 percent, increased 149 percent from 462 to 1,149 between 2019 and 2020, and increased 31 percent to 1,504 in 2021.