Authorities in Los Angeles on Thursday found a burned body stuffed in a shopping cart at a city homeless encampment, a report said.
The find comes after several recent fire attacks on the homeless in the city, The Los Angeles Times reported. It was unclear if the person was homeless, but the report said it was recovered at a spot in Van Nuys that is frequented by transients.
Homelessness in Los Angeles has been a top issue in the city that has attracted national attention after President Trump sent a team to take a firsthand look at the issue.
In July, Democratic Mayor Eric Garcetti issued a public invitation for the Republican president to walk the streets with him and see the suffering and squalid conditions. The mayor released a letter to Trump on Tuesday saying he looked forward to working together, but tensions between the White House and officials in heavily Democratic California were also on vivid display.
Garcetti, who said 36,000 people in the city are homeless on any given night, implied that he was ready to talk but wrote that “the federal government has woefully underfunded our housing safety net, contributing to homelessness” and slashed funding for new housing.
“We must put politics aside,” he wrote.