LOS ANGELES
By David Ewing and Linda Lucks
“The law in its infinite majesty … forbids the rich as well as the poor to sleep under bridges” -- Anatole France
Actually, in LA it is legal to sleep under bridges - unless you’re in a vehicle. You can sleep on the ground, courtesy of the ACLU, but if you’re in a car or a camper, you’re a bust.
There was another police sweep of the homeless on Venice Beach the other night.
They bagged 50 people this time. The City’s brought in LAPD Commander Andy Smith, who ran the “Safe Streets” initiative on skid row, to work his cleansing magic in this seaside district, which has been roiled by conflicts over a burgeoning homeless population, and especially over people living in vehicles.
It was this skid row initiative that gave Los Angeles a lock on the title of “The Meanest City in America,” as reported nationwide on NPR.
With inadequate parking in the best of times, a severe homeless problem, and a history of community fights over social service providers and their clientele, Venice found itself at the center of a “perfect storm,” whipped to hurricane force by an army of decrepit RVs and a “mad as hell” backlash against them.
An attempt to create permit-only overnight parking districts in the Venice Coastal Zone, on which councilman Rosendahl spent around $70,000, was unceremoniously scuttled by the California Coastal Commission. Now a citizens’ group’s suit against the Commission has pitted the City Attorney against the state, with Rosendahl cheering him from the sidelines. All of this is costing the city money and doing nothing to solve the camper problem – just trying to move it to someone else’s neighborhood.
So the Venice circus goes on. Why should the rest of the City care?
Because meanwhile, Rosendahl has tried to get his Council colleagues to okay a managed parking program for the vehiclular homeless. Santa Barbara’s had such a program for four years, with great success. When it was initially considered, a business group voted 5 to1 against it. Four years later the same group voted 5 to 1 to expand it. Eugene, Oregon has had a similar program for 10 years. Their response when they heard L.A. might balk at the idea? “Have your cops call our cops.” Their police chief is its biggest advocate.
So what happened to Rosendahl’s proposal? It seems to be homeless. First it went to the Ad Hoc Committee on Homelessness, on which he sits with Jan Perry and Eric Garcetti. Garcetti walked out before the discussion. Perry was not interested, at least not for her district. She had built more than her share of supportive housing, she said, and anyway, the homeless in her district couldn’t afford campers. Nevertheless, to her credit, she voted it out of committee.
From there it wandered over to the Transportation Committee, which Rosendahl chairs. The response from his fellow committee members? Not in my district! It was okay if Rosendahl wanted a pilot project in the 11th, but not if that meant it could eventually grow to other districts -- not even if it would require approval by each district’s Council member.
Does anyone notice a pattern here? Yes, it’s the City Council’s very own version of NIMBY. (In Transportation Committee member Alarcon’s case, it may have been “Not In My FRONT Yard.” Someone living in an RV in front of an empty house where Alarcon claimed to be living outed the absent Councilman to reporters.)
Now the motion has migrated over to the Housing and Economic Development Committee, where we’ll find out if Wesson, Reyes and Cardenas will raise their voices to join Alarcon, Perry et al in the next chorus of “NOT IN MY DISTRICT.”
For all their denials, vehicular homelessness is a citywide problem, and the Council Members’ parochial District blinders make it clear that any real solutions will require Citywide and County leadership.
The city can be relied on to protest that it can’t afford a program when it’s on the verge of bankruptcy, but the truth is, it can’t afford NOT to start a program which would save the city & county money in law enforcement, public health and social services costs. It would help bring order to streets that in some places are becoming dangerous. It would provide an alternative to criminalizing those whose misfortune has put them one step from complete homelessness.
Our City and County leadership must not be in denial that there won't be any new housing anytime soon for the growing numbers of homeless in the current, disastrous economy. It is morally imperative to keep people who have the shelter of a vehicle safe, which will save the City money at the same time because they won’t be in jails or sleeping on the street.
The solution is too simple:
1) Find safe overnight parking areas (not permanent tent cities),
2) Permit those in vehicles to use them, with the promise of accepting a program aimed towards housing, health and VA services, as needed, and
3) Move people off the streets as is successfully done in Laguna Beach, Santa Barbara, Eugene,
Oregon and other cities. The cops love it. People in cars are moved off the streets, relieving
overburdened residents, and people are helped.
We might even get Los Angeles off the list of the 10 Meanest Cities in America.
Related
• Last Refuge for the Homeless: Living in the Car (Time Mag)
• Top 10 Meanest Cities in USA (Netscape)
• Rosendahl Motion (CF 08-3125)
• Town Without Pity (CityWatch)
(David Ewing and Linda Lucks are members of the Venice Action Alliance … www.veniceaction.org ) -cw
CityWatch
Vol 8 Issue 13
Pub: Feb 16, 2010
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