Los Angeles
A video tour of his living room sofa and loveseat, porcelain toilet and zebra-skin slipcovers has been seen 1.4 million times on Facebook. His fans make pilgrimages to the tent-lined strip beneath the 110 Freeway near the Coliseum — he calls it “Paradise Lane” — to take selfies.
His quarters are so spacious that another homeless man pays him $25 a week to rent a tent, sandwiched between the “guest room” and a third mattress and headboard. Waddell, who also goes by Mr. Dice, calls it his Airbnb.
“I was walking by and I saw the little sign, ‘For rent,’” said the tenant, Anthony Garcia.
But what delights Waddell’s followers does not sit well with the city, whose sanitation crews have twice dismantled and carted off his handiwork. Last week, workers removed a refrigerator with an “abundance of rotting food,” “explosive materials” and other unhealthful things, said Bureau of Sanitation spokeswoman Elena Stern.
Two days later, Waddell had scavenged neighborhood castoffs and rebuilt most of the setup, with flourishes that include ceramic planters with paper orchids, a surfboard and a hot dog stand.
“I refuse to let the city beat me down to what they think a homeless person’s profile is, living on cardboard,” Waddell said. “This should be a landmark.”
A year ago, city elected leaders called for homelessness to be declared a state of emergency. Plans released in February by the city and county were approved this month by voters. They passed a $1.2 billion bond issue for new homeless housing. But the construction will take 10 years, and housing homeless people in the meantime is moving slowly.
Sanitation crews receive reports of 100 to 200 camps a week, and the number keeps rising.
“Our main priority always is to get unsheltered homeless individuals off the streets and into housing,” said Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority spokesman Tom Waldman.
Mayor Eric Garcetti’s spokeswoman, Connie Llanos, said: “We know that none of these strategies will solve our homelessness crisis overnight, but Mayor Garcetti is committed to ensuring that the crisis is solved as quickly as possible.”
Stern said Waddell refused homeless services, including temporary housing. Waddell declined to speak to City Councilman Curren D. Price Jr. when the councilman visited homeless camps under freeway bridges in his South Los Angeles district, Price’s spokeswoman said.
“There’s been a great deal of public safety and public health concern from neighbors in the area, as well as LAPD and the Sanitation Department,” said the spokeswoman, Angelina D. Valencia.
Waddell says he wants housing, noting that a car recently left the freeway and crashed, pinning a homeless woman in her bedding. Two men with a pistol tried to rob him in his bed.
“This is not going to be the end of my life,” he said.
Waddell said he first became homeless at age 14 in Memphis, Tenn., where police nicknamed him “Dice” because he didn’t run when they busted craps games. He’s the seventh of eight children of an alcoholic mother. His sisters tried to turn him into a Cinderella to clean up their messes, he said.
He sang soul covers in a bar band before arriving in Los Angeles in 1983, where he did a brief turn as a clothing salesman before deciding he could not work for others. He moved between the streets and pay-by-the-week hotels, depending on the success of various hustles and sales jobs, including, briefly, drug sales.
For 10 years, he lived inside with a girlfriend, but when she died, he lost their shared income, landed back on Skid Row and six months ago arrived at the underpass, he said.
His Internet fame has been rejuvenating, Waddell said, as well as his newfound talent for interior decoration: “I enjoy the hype, like anybody else.”