Passing the Buck, and the Homeless

As if Los Angeles didn’t already have enough problems, now the city of Santa Clarita has decided it can’t find a suitable place to shelter its growing homeless population. So Santa Clarita is going to ship them out, headed for guess where.

I drove up the Golden State Freeway on Tuesday to see what this is all about. I wanted to hear from the homeless, and I also wanted to confront Santa Clarita’s mayor, an ex-cop with the LAPD.

They’ve had shelters in the past, Mayor Bob Kellar had told The Times’ Carla Rivera. But this year, they couldn’t meet “the needs and concerns of the entire community.” What this means is that they got a few complaints last year from people living near a temporary shelter set up at a train station.

I don’t know my way around Santa Clarita, so I stopped for directions at an Exxon station on San Fernando Road. There I met a homeless man named William, who said he likes to “dress cowboy,” and he had a fine black hat and black boots to prove it.

William lives in a tent behind the station and said he ran out of heating fuel, but Jesus keeps his heart warm. The gas station preacher had a menorah set up on a brick wall along with a Bible.

The shelter never interested him, William said. But he thinks Santa Clarita’s decision to shut it down was a raw deal.

“I’ll tell you what it is,” William said. “It’s government goin’ for the rich.”

William directed me to the Via Princessa Metrolink station where the shelter was set up last year. Frankly, I didn’t see the big threat to public safety the mayor had mentioned. You’ve got to go up a long, steep hill and cross a busy highway to get to the condos where residents were shaking in their boots.

To be fair, not all the homeless are harmless. Some are predators and cons, and then you’ve got the epidemic of mental illness and addiction, so this isn’t an easy population to work with. Especially when there’s never enough drug and alcohol rehab, job training, transitional housing or mental health treatment.

But many of Southern California’s new homeless are families that got priced out of the ridiculous real estate market, says Claire O’Garro of Lutheran Social Services in Van Nuys.

O’Garro’s agency got the contract to ship Santa Clarita’s homeless to shelters in Sylmar and downtown L.A. She said she’d prefer that somebody -- anybody -- take responsibility for the homeless instead of passing them off. She’s in daily contact with people who live in their cars and visit churches begging for help.

Santa Clarita, to its credit, has not ignored this problem. For several years, a devoted group of volunteers has operated the winter shelter, offering warm beds, mental health counseling and job references.

“Literally a thousand people have volunteered their time,” says Tim Davis, a businessman who has been involved from the beginning.

Still, City Council members decided to dump the Via Princessa site, then claimed they couldn’t find an alternative location.

I’m sure they knocked themselves out.

In three hours, I found enough locations for them to handle not only their own homeless population, estimated at 175, but also several hundred of L.A.’s homeless. I’m thinking of renting a van and shuttling skid row residents up to see what they’d think about moving to the burbs.

My travels took me to the Church of Hope food pantry, where the clients included people living in tents out in the flood wash that runs along Soledad Canyon.

“We’re giving out 20 or 30 boxes a day of blankets and food,” said Kathi Spears.

Out back at a recycling center, a homeless couple had just cashed in their daily collection of bottles and cans.

“We got $33 today,” said William Smith, 27, who lost his job with a water heater company three months ago and got booted out of his rental. He and Becky, also 27, are living in a tent out in the wash, and it’s the first time they’ve been homeless.

“It gets so cold, it hurts,” Becky said. But they keep moving once the sun comes up, collecting recyclables and looking for work. Becky said if the cold-weather shelter were open, they’d use it to shower, at least. If it got really cold, they’d sleep there to thaw out.

“But why would we go to L.A? So we could watch our backs while we’re sleeping? It’s not a place I’d ever want to be homeless. Not that I want to be homeless in Santa Clarita, either. We’re just having a stretch of bad luck.”

Mayor Kellar’s real estate office -- Kellar-Davis, Inc. -- is just up the road from where roughly 20 people are living in the wash. In the lobby is a large photo of a house Kellar’s company once listed for $3.8 million, and a more current listing is a $1.595-million spread in Sand Canyon.

I suppose if I were trying to sell million-dollar houses, the last thing I’d want is a homeless problem.

To assure me he’s a good-hearted guy, Kellar told me about the charitable giveaway programs he was involved in as an L.A. cop for 25 years. But he also made it clear he doesn’t intend for Santa Clarita to be as accommodating to the homeless as Santa Monica and Vero Beach, Fla.

“Go talk to Santa Monica” to find out what can go wrong, he suggested. As mayor, he wants to balance the needs of Santa Clarita’s homeless with the concerns of merchants and residents.

Well that’s convenient, isn’t it? He doesn’t want Santa Clarita to go the way of Santa Monica, but he has no problem shipping his homeless to the town I live in.

The goal was not to “pawn them off on L.A.,” Kellar insisted. The city is paying $36,000 to Lutheran for sheltering services and it just so happens that deporting the homeless is part of the bargain.

Besides, Kellar said, people have to “stop pointing a finger at government” to solve all these problems. Philanthropic organizations and caring individuals have to step in and ante up.

Good idea.

I saw a Davis-Kellar listing for a $661,000 “rustic chalet style home ... on the edge of 11 glorious acres with total privacy.”

Perfect.