Escalating their battle to stamp out an unprecedented spread of street encampments, city officials have begun seizing tiny houses from homeless people living on freeway overpasses in South Los Angeles.

Three of the gaily painted wooden houses, which come with solar-powered lights and American flags, were confiscated earlier this month and seven more are planned for impound Thursday, a Bureau of Sanitation spokeswoman said.

Elvis Summers, who built and donated the structures, was out Wednesday with a flat-bed trailer, trying to move houses scattered up and down Harbor Freeway bridges into storage.

“These people are beaten down so hard, you give them any opportunity to be normal, it lifts them up,” Summers said.

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