Opinion: New life for HALO
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You know how they call newspapers the ‘first draft of history’? Our editorial this morning in defense of the HALO program -- a three-pronged effort to keep homeless, non-violent offenders out of the criminal justice system -- is a pretty good example. By the time it was published, it may already have been moot.
Here’s a quick tick-tock. City Attorney Rocky Delgadillo’s office was planning to hold a press conference Thursday about an expansion of HALO, which is part of the Safer Cities Initiative in skid row. The program was planning to step up efforts to help homeless people resolve their legal problems without going to court or jail -- in particular, enabling them to discharge citations by performing community service (which could include attending classes or getting counseling). Late Tuesday afternoon, one of the organizers of the event sent an e-mail to others in Delgadillo’s camp, noting that the conference had to be canceled because Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa’s new budget wiped out HALO’s funding (along with the rest of the Safer Cities Initiative). She also asked for help alerting those who’d already been invited to attend, including city council members, top brass at the LAPD, business leaders and skid row service providers.
Opposition to the proposed cut built swiftly, and by early Wednesday afternoon we in the Opinion Manufacturing Division had gotten wind of it. By the time I started talking to service providers and business people who were familiar with the program, supporters of HALO were well along in their efforts to persuade the City Council to restore its funding. They planned to make their case to the council Monday, when the Budget and Finance Committee is scheduled to review the public safety portion of the budget, among others. Curious why Villaraigosa had singled out the Safer Cities Initiative, I put in a call to his press office. Press Secretary Matt Szabo said he wasn’t aware of the cut, so he tried to round up someone who could respond to my questions. No answer came by deadline, so we went ahead and ran an editorial praising HALO and urging the city not to sacrifice such programs without good reason:
... [T]he budget gap is so wide that city leaders may have little choice but to cut some programs that confer real, cost-effective benefits. But they need not cut just to cut. They must do their best to keep intact the best models for delivering services, spending tax dollars wisely and laying a foundation for better times.
Later that evening, I got an urgent message from Szabo saying that the proposed cut had been ‘inadvertent,’ and that Villaraigosa had not intended to shrink the Safer Cities staff. The mayor will seek an amendment to restore the positions. It’s still a mystery to me how HALO’s money vanished -- Szabo says no one in the mayor’s office approved the cut -- but I care less about that than seeing the funding reappear.