ARTICLES
March 2003 ARTICLES
Contents © 2003
by Jim Holman.
All rights reserved.
Flawed and Simplistic
Is Society Criminalizing Homelessness?
By Martin Mazloom
"We don't think it's a good idea to sleep on the sidewalk. We're in agreement with the business community. But until and unless you have a reasonable alternative that is acceptable to the homeless, you can not move homeless people off the sidewalk." So said Alice Callahan, director of Las Familias del Pueblo, referring to Los Angeles city councilwoman Jan Perry's controversial proposed ordinance. According to a December press release from Perry's office, on October 9, 2002, Perry "introduced a motion that would ban camping on sidewalks at night and place some limitation on outdoor feedings in Downtown Los Angeles. The motion asks the city attorney to prepare an ordinance that would: a) limit free outdoor meals by requiring groups serving 150 or more people to adhere to community event laws and county health standards, and b) implement provisions to ban camping in public in Downtown Los Angeles."
The motion is yet another link in the chain of controversy surrounding downtown Los Angeles' homeless. Three years ago, the ACLU sued the Central City East Association, a business improvement district which represents industrial and manufacturing companies with over 600 properties, many located in Skid Row. The ACLU, along with service providers Alice Callahan of Las Familias del Pueblo and Jeff Dietrich of the L.A. Catholic Worker, claimed that the security personnel of business improvement district associations were harassing the homeless and even violating their civil rights. While the ACLU and providers settled the suits out of court with two business improvement districts, the Los Angeles Fashion District and the Historic Core District, the lawsuit against the Central City East Association is still in court.
"We still deny all allegations by Alice Callahan," said Tracy Lovejoy, Central City East's executive director. When I asked Lovejoy if the parties had tried mediation, she responded, "Callahan just sued us. We would've preferred that she would've come to us first. We're in court now trying to negotiate a settlement. We don't feel we've done anything wrong."
Lovejoy said Central City East also supports Perry's motion. "We support both of her ordinances," Lovejoy said. "This is a public health issue, with people living on the sidewalk. The USDA cited us for homeless activity in front of one of our properties. It's a safety issue as well. It's about people -- employees, people in wheelchairs -- not being able to walk down the sidewalk. We have no problems with missions and service providers."
Alice Callahan said that she didn't "just sue." "We did have mediation," she said. "We settled with two of the three BIDs. We have good working relationships with the other two groups. We work out any issues as we go along. The reason they [Central City East Association] won't agree is because they won't agree to what we asked of everyone else."
As for the imposition of county health regulations on homeless service providers -- they are "just a pretext," said Callahan. "She [Jan Perry] wants to stop -- not add -- services. She believes the homeless are in the streets just because of support services. She believes if the services are removed the homeless will go away." According to Callahan, if Perry is concerned about the homeless and their health, "then why isn't she providing more meals, more bathrooms, and more shelter beds? If the problem is people aren't using gloves to feed the homeless, then why not hand out gloves?"
Callahan insisted, though, that the Central City East security guards (also known as "The Red Shirts") are indeed bullying the homeless. "They always were and still are the worst," said Callahan. "Last year they started taking things. We got a court order to stop them from taking people's things, but they're not abiding [by] the court order. They're out on sidewalks ordering people to move. They confiscate people's bags and blankets. These homeless are not on anyone's personal property. Homeless people need to put their stuff somewhere so they can go to work and go to the welfare office and do everything that regular people do. A lot of homeless work! There's the fish industry, the produce industry. Guys go help unload the trucks. There are a lot of day labor options."
Callahan added, "to complicate things, the LAPD and city hall announced they'll arrest people for sleeping on public sidewalks. There's an ordinance on the books that says you can't sleep or sit on sidewalks. We got an injunction against the police in federal court, but now Perry is crafting an anti-camping and anti-feeding ordinance."
Commenting on Perry's proposed ordinance, Callahan said, "talk about the absence of intellectual thinking, let alone moral feeling! That's what we get from city hall? The police are sent in to deal with a social issue that the city won't deal with. Some police are troubled by what they have to do. There's no sympathy from city hall. Not from Rocky Delgadillo, Jan Perry, or Nick Pacheco."
Jeff Dietrich believes chief of police William Bratton is a key figure in the police crackdown on the homeless. "The Central City East Association had a meeting with the new police chief," said Dietrich. "He made a reputation on cleaning up Times Square in New York. The LAPD is trying to criminalize poverty. They're citing people for petty crimes like sitting in front of the building they live in or standing and talking to friends on the sidewalk. There's an intensive effort to cite people for jaywalking. All of these agencies are acting with impunity to violate the civil rights of the homeless and poor." Dietrich added that Central City East security personnel "operate as an arm of the police."
To Dietrich, the opposing points of view are clear. "They [the businesses and police] see it as a criminal problem," he said. "We [the providers] see it as a housing problem. I'd love to have more jobs and drug treatment programs, but the main root of homelessness is lack of affordable housing."
Kent Smith, executive director of the Los Angeles Fashion District, said that the Fashion District reached a settlement with the ACLU and the providers two years ago. Although he refrained from discussing the allegations stated in the suit, Smith did say that the situation has improved for everyone involved.
"We thought, 'why not come to the table for mediation?'" Smith said. "We came up with a code of conduct for our Safe Team [security personnel]. We've been working with the ACLU to monitor this. We've had very few complaints. It's working. We want to treat everyone with dignity and respect."
According to Smith, the Safe Team has two purposes. The first is to act as the "eyes and ears of the LAPD." Smith said Safe Team members "report crime to the LAPD" and, when appropriate, will "make a citizen's arrest to deter and prevent crime." Their second function is to help people in the community. "Last year we reunited 80 lost children with their parents," said Smith. "We're very proud of our 100 percent track record. We've never not found a child." He added that Safe Team members also aid people at the scenes of traffic accidents and medical emergencies. "Sometimes there are homeless who are involved with criminal activity," said Smith, "but we've helped many homeless people."
Smith, who is a resident of Santa Monica where an anti-camping and anti-feeding ordinance was passed last year, supports Perry's proposed ordinance for downtown Los Angeles. "We do need an ordinance," said Smith. "There are public health and safety issues. One of the challenges of feeding the homeless in Santa Monica is that a lot of trash is generated that gets immediately swept into the storm drain and goes to the bay. There are impacts that can have deleterious effects on the community. There needs to be some way of regulating that. I think that's legitimate."
Ralph Plumb, president of the Union Rescue Mission, said the city and the chief of police have indeed increased their exercise of the police's legal right. "They're enforcing laws legally and Chief Bratton is doing it aggressively. I don't have a problem with providing clean and safe streets, but an appropriate and long overdue solution is needed. What troubles me the most is that there's a movement in some sectors among the business and political interests in the city to criminalize homelessness." He added, "People think if you get rid of service providers you'll get rid of homelessness. That's ludicrous. They're making an assumption that all homeless are law-breaking parolees. But there are homeless women and children, homeless who are mentally ill, some homeless who have been tossed out of their HUD subsidized housing."
Plumb also said he is "very unhappy" with the city's lack of a plan to deal with the homeless problem. "I don't disagree with Jan Perry's efforts to keep our city streets clean and safe, but I think her approach is flawed and simplistic. We're just going to move the homeless to the east side of the river. We're not going to solve the problem. We need a community-wide, integrated plan where all stakeholders participate -- not just the police, not just politicians, not just businesses, not just service providers."
Plumb noted that the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority, an organization formed 10 years ago by the city and county to serve the homeless, only receives $40 million in funding while New York City "spends $500 million on homeless services and housing -- more than 10 times what Los Angeles spends." According to Plumb, "L.A. is taking advantage of the weather and the diffusion of homelessness -- Santa Monica, downtown, the Valley -- throughout the county."
Siri Khalsa, director of development and communications for the Homeless Services Authority, confirmed that the organization's annual budget is $40 million, with most of the money coming from the federal government. She said that the Authority is a "joint powers authority, a quasi-government organization" that funds homeless programs -- via contract -- run by non-profit agencies. According to Khalsa, the Homeless Services Authority has 150-200 contracts with about 75 different non-profit agencies. "We have a lot of contracts for life training and substance abuse programs," Khalsa said, "but shelter is primary. Homeless shelters are paramount."
She said that the Authority "hasn't gotten any complaints" about how security personnel are treating the homeless on Skid Row, but said Perry's proposed ordinance is a different story. "There's a lot of concern in the community about the proposed ordinance," Khalsa said. "We all agree with the Central City East Association. Everyone agrees we need to do something about the Skid Row homeless, but our organization is of the opinion that we really can't endorse a policy unless there is a bed for every homeless person. It's a right to shelter issue. We can't support an anti-camping policy unless there are adequate facilities available. It's not a crime to be homeless."
Khalsa echoed Plumb's belief about the nature of the solution to Los Angeles ' homelessness problem. "The solution to the homeless problem is going to take a lot of stakeholders: businesses, homeless, providers, government," she said. "It's going to require input from everyone. No one group can really speak for any other group. The solution is going to be multi-pronged. It's not just going to be 'we need more beds.' It's going to require addressing different issues: mental health, substance abuse, permanent affordable housing. It also requires looking at prevention and going to schools. Why do people become homeless? It's not a quick fix."
The Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority and the Los Angeles Coalition to End Hunger and Homelessness have joined together to sponsor a plan to end homelessness in Los Angeles County in 10 years. Currently, the Homeless Services Authority estimates that the countywide homeless population is 84,300 on any given night and over 236,000 over the course of a year. Approximately half of the homeless population are within the city of Los Angeles.
But Callahan believes the post-9/11 climate and the police are only making it increasingly difficult for the homeless to improve their lives. "I don't see the same support and sympathy in the public that used to be there," she said. "I think at this point people are happy to put anyone who looks foreign or poor in jail.
"The police sweeps were just a few days before Thanksgiving 2002. Parole violators -- that's the image of the homeless the police are trying to portray. They picked up less than 200 out of 11,000 people and had to let many of them go with no charges. One guy who was picked up and released with no charges lost his job at Forest Lawn because he missed work. What the police did was not just humiliating and wrong, it was illegal. People didn't matter to them."