Good Samaritan finds couple living inside bridge pillars along Los Angeles River

A Good Samaritan trying to clean up the streets of Los Angeles made a disturbing discovery: a couple attempting to live inside the hollow pillars of a bridge along the LA River.

Juan Naula runs Clean L.A. With Me, a nonprofit that aims to fight the city’s waste crisis and “restore dignity to our local neighborhoods.”

Naula often scours rough, industrial corners of East Los Angeles — the types of places most people move past, not toward.

Places where it’s easy to believe no one is paying attention.

But Naula is.

One day, as Naula walked on a bridge along the LA River, he discovered a man and woman living inside a small crawl space of the bridge. He couldn’t believe his eyes.

“I want to cry,” Naula told NBC Los Angeles. “This is not acceptable. I don’t accept it.”

At the bridge, Naula asked the woman inside the pillar if he could give her food. She accepted it, telling Naula she and her boyfriend had been living there for three years.

“The bank took over the houses and that’s why they ended up here,” Naula said.

Telemundo 52 used its 360-camera to capture images of the cramped living space loaded with items the couple has collected over their time inside the bridge pillar.

What the camera couldn’t capture was the strong odor of urine and smoke lingering from fire they use to keep warm. The camera also couldn’t capture the couple’s despair — the sadness Naula is hoping to help with.

“I’m trying to do whatever I can. Sometimes people don’t want help, it’s OK, but this lady wanted to get help,” he explained.

Naula has been trying to help Angelenos since he came to LA a year-and-a-half ago from the East Coast. He launched his nonprofit with hopes of inspiring everyday people to clean up the city one street at a time.

He told NBCLA that what he has encountered has been thousands of unhoused people just like the couple living in the bridge.

Some, he said, are living in sewers or drainage pipes, hidden from the city that Naula hopes won’t turn a blind eye.

He will not.

In fact, he hopes he can help more people that need a hand.

“It’s everything,” he said.

Naula is working with other nonprofit organizations to help round up resources and assistance for Angelenos living in these conditions.

But he needs more help.

Naula hopes more people will find him on social media and be part of his ongoing Clean LA movement.

People can help in several ways, including volunteering for one of his many cleanup events, donating funds to buy supplies for the cleanup events, or donating essential items for unhoused neighbors like food, water, clothes, and hygiene kits.

For more ways to get involved, visit Clean L.A. With Me’s website.