LOS ANGELES — For three decades, Los Angeles County Sheriff's Lt. Jeff Deedrick has answered the calls of voices in need.

But in the last eight years, as the leader of the sheriff's Homeless Outreach Services Team, Deedrick's calling has been to answer the needs of the voiceless.

“Hi, I’m Jeff,” he said to a transient woman in Playa Del Rey. “What needs do you have?”

On a recent Friday morning, Deedrick, deputies from HOST, social workers from the LA Homeless Services Authority and representatives from other agencies tried to learn more about the residents of an encampment along West Jefferson Boulevard next to the Ballona Freshwater Marsh.

"We are not an enforcement team," said Deedrick. "However, we have to have some accountability and civility. That’s the humanistic part of the HOST model...empowering deputies to be compassionate and kind and still be strong."

You might have heard of the HOST team before. They’re a team of just 26 deputies who caused a stir last summer when they showed up along Venice Beach and, within weeks, helped to dismantle a homeless encampment there. Then in November, they did the same thing along Veterans Row in Brentwood with an encampment that had been there for years.

And after months of constant outcries from activists and a Spectrum News 1 story about the impact the transient community was having on the ecology of the Ballona Freshwater Marsh, Deedrick has zoned in on the area next.

But not everyone agrees with the sheriff’s department approach or involvement. The encampment sits in LA Councilmember Mike Bonin’s district. He sent us a statement saying the sheriff’s tactics are not solving the problem:

“Once again [LA County Sheriff] Villanueva is conducting a PR stunt that is disrupting outreach, threatening criminalization, and pushing people from neighborhood to neighborhood. It’s an expensive, failed strategy. He brings no solutions to the table, and does nothing to help get anyone off the streets. Villanueva is all hat and no housing.”

One of the residents of the encampment is Eric Anderson, who lives in his car and has been in the area for years. He says he lost his home shortly after losing his job.

"It’s pretty depressing to live in a car, I’ll tell you that much," he said.

Anderson told us drug use is common in the area. In fact, we spotted the opioid overdose drug Narcan mounted outside an RV door like a fire extinguisher and found needles on the ground. Anderson also said people have been using the marsh to relieve themselves. Vegetation has been torn down to make space for illegally parked cars.

After a short conversation with Deedrick, Andersom seemed willing to accept help.

“I feel like there is hope, you know. I just gotta take the steps, start taking action,” he said.

There will be many steps for Anderson to go through in the coming weeks, but Deedrick is confident in his strategy and mission.

“When you treat people with respect, it doesn’t matter what place in life they are,” said Deedrick.