LOS ANGELES (AP) — A month after Gov. Gavin Newsom ordered cities and state agencies to take urgent action against people sleeping in public spaces, officials on Thursday cleared a homeless encampment at a California state beach.

Bright yellow garbage trucks rolled onto the sand of Dockweiler State Beach behind Los Angeles International Airport to begin the cleanup, accompanied by county employees and local police.

The effort was organized by Los Angeles City Councilwoman Traci Park in conjunction with the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority. The beach is part of California’s state park system, but the county provides maintenance and lifeguard services, while the city provides police.

Park’s office did not immediately respond to requests for comment Thursday.

Earlier this summer, Governor Newsom said issued an implementing regulation for state agencies to clear homeless encampments on public property. It was his boldest action yet, after a Supreme Court ruling allowed cities to ban overnight camping outdoors. He called on cities and counties to do the same, but they are not legally required to do so.

In August threatened with the cancellation of state funding of cities and counties not doing enough to clear out the encampments, while he apparently joined Los Angeles sanitation workers in throwing out the trash.

Under Newsom’s leadership, the state has spent about $24 billion to clean up streets and house people, including at least $3.2 billion in grants to local governments to build emergency shelters, clear encampments and provide homeless people with services as they see fit, Newsom said.

Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass and Los Angeles County officials have pushed back against the governor’s approach, saying that criminalizing homelessness or simply clearing encampments without providing services or shelter does not work. While more than 75,000 people were homeless every night in Los Angeles County, after a count At the beginning of the year, there were only around 23,000 emergency accommodation places in the district.

James Kingston, 63, was forced to leave the camp on Thursday. He said he lived on the beach because he could collect so many cans and bottles there on weekends to earn money.

Like many others, he was not fazed by the cleanup crew, as he had seen it many times over the past six years as a homeless person. Some people left when the police arrived, while others watched as officers cordoned off their tents. They had received a notification shortly before the cleanup was due to begin.

“You just grab your important things and everything else has to go,” Kingston said. “You just have to let it go, because that’s the way it is.”