A world-renowned beachfront has been transformed into what seething locals are nicknaming 'Sleeping Bag Beach' after shocking sunrise scenes showed scores of people bedded down on the sand in a grim symbol of LA’s deepening homelessness crisis.

Images taken at first light by photographer and Santa Monica council candidate Derrick Townsend on June 20, reveal sleeping bags, blankets and personal belongings strewn across the Santa Monica shoreline, as rough sleepers hunkered down just yards from the Pacific Ocean.

Renowned worldwide for its beaches and high-end real estate, the area ranked in the top 10 of all US beaches in the 2026 TripAdvisor Travelers' Choice Awards, and has an average home listing price of approximately $3.1 million, while median sale prices range from about $1.7 million to $1.8 million, according to Redfin.

Santa Monica has been frequently referred to as 'Hollywood by the Sea' and has been the backdrop to many TV shows and movies including Baywatch.

Yet alarmed residents say the once-glamorous beach is rapidly decaying and is starting to bear more of a resemblance to notorious Skid Row. 

Townsend has spent months documenting the conditions and told the Daily Mail that homeless people have been 'going to the bathroom on the beach, digging holes in the sand to do it. There are fires. It’s legitimately degrading our economy.’

The situation is being worsened by a cynical game of civic whack-a-mole, Townsend claims as he believes the city council is pushing inland vagrants towards the beach.

The current city council are 'not really helping them, they’re just pushing them to other places,’ he claimed.

‘With the events they’re having downtown and around Santa Monica, they’re pushing homeless people out. They can’t go on the pier, they can’t go in the neighborhoods, so they tend to get pushed out toward the beach and sleep there.’

Townsend was referring to events such as the FIFA World Cup which has brought in a international visitors to watch eight matches at Los Angeles Stadium (SoFi Stadium) in Inglewood.

Townsend continued: ‘Safety for people walking around, elderly residents, businesses, the environment - all of it is being affected.'  

The sense of fear, he said, now stretches far beyond the beachfront.

‘I talk to moms who say, “I can’t let my son walk to school anymore,”’ Townsend said. ‘People are paying an enormous amount of money to live here, you shouldn’t feel like your kids can’t walk to school safely.’  

The city has long wrestled with homelessness, but residents say the crisis has escalated.

Many residents and business owners blame decades of liberal leadership, arguing city policies have focused heavily on homelessness programs while failing to address concerns over public safety, downtown decline and quality of life.

Santa Monica’s famed Third Street Promenade, once one of the most successful shopping destinations in Southern California, has been battered by a wave of closures and stubbornly high vacancies. 

A tracker that monitors Third Street Promenade Occupancy put storefront vacancies on the Promenade at around 27 percent, roughly three times the five to 10 percent range commonly cited as healthy for urban retail corridors.

‘Santa Monica is starting to get known for this,’ Townsend warned. ‘Businesses are closing. People are throwing bricks through windows.’ 

Townsend highlighted one incident involving a vicious attack that shuttered restaurant Blue Plate Oysterette in January this year.

The restaurant owner Jennifer Rush described to FOX11 incidents including a homeless individual slashing the restaurant’s patio screens with a knife, break-ins, and a propane tank thrown at the front window.

'We see mentally ill people wandering the streets on a daily basis, screaming at people,' Rush told the outlet. 

'We go to the park across the street and it’s illegal to have a glass of wine, yet people are sitting there doing drugs - and nothing seems to happen.

'We’ve had break-ins. We had a guy throwing a propane tank at our front window. Our staff doesn’t feel safe, and tourists see that and don’t want to come back,' Rush said.

Townsend also blasted the current Los Angeles County’s approach to addiction and homelessness, taking aim at harm reduction policies.

‘They call it harm reduction, giving people clean needles so they don’t get diseases while doing drugs,’ he said. ‘The problem is they’re giving people the tools to do drugs and never get better, in public parks as well!’

The needle distribution program has been operated weekly by the Venice Family Clinic under the guidance of the Los Angeles County Public Health Department at Reed Park in Santa Monica for more than two years. 

The program, which provides free clean needles, Narcan and fentanyl testing strips, aims to help those struggling with drug addiction.

However, critics say the program harms the people who live there. A petition of more than 22,000 signatures has called for an end to the program.

The most recent homeless statistics from the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority (LAHSA) found 475 unsheltered people living in Santa Monica in 2025, that was down by four from the previous year.

It also identified 202 people living in shelters, compared with 173 in 2024.

In a 2025 study on the most and least theft-prone beaches in the US, Santa Monica State Beach led the state in property crimes, ranking first overall as the riskiest beach, with a theft rate of 59.87 per 1,000 residents.

Romaine, a longtime California resident, spoke to FOX11 in November and compared parts of the state to a 'third world country.' 

'Even I will not wear my AirPods during the day here. You’ve got to watch yourself. You’ve got to be ready,' he cautioned.

Locals say the beach is now littered with trash, drug paraphernalia and human waste, while safety concerns are mounting.

‘For the environmental part, you’ve got trash everywhere,’ Townsend exclaimed.

‘We’ve had a few sexual assaults on the beach this year, where people are just sleeping or tanning and someone comes up and sexually assaults them while they’re lying there.’

In March, a 40-year-old man was arrested in connection with an attempted sexual assault on Santa Monica beach.

The victim was sunbathing when someone attempted to sexually assault her, police said. A suspect was detained.

During Labor Day weekend 2025, an employee at Pier Pizza Subs and Salad near the Santa Monica Pier was stabbed multiple times from behind while eating lunch. 

In August 2025, the Santa Monica Police Department arrested a homeless man following an unprovoked multi-stabbing assault near the pedestrian staircase connecting Ocean Front Walk to Appian Way.

In July 2025 a homeless man was charged with two forcible sex crimes and one hate crime, occurring on the Santa Monica bike path alongside the beach.

He allegedly initially carried out the first attack in April and then went on to commit two other assaults in June and July, attacking a 26-year-old man and kidnapping and raping a 61-year-old woman.

However detectives said at the time that they believed there was many additional unreported incidents similar to the nature of these and encouraged victims to come forward.

Other incidents involved attempted rape of a young woman who was jogging on a beach path in Santa Monica, on May 14, 2025.

The victim, was jogging on the beach path when the suspect grabbed her ponytail from behind, knocking her to the ground, authorities said.

Townsend is running as an Independent in the November 3 elections, though his campaign is registered with the Forward Party. 

The Daily Mail has reached out to Santa Monica City Council and Blue Plate Oysterette for further comment.