Of Tent City and Afterward
When a study prepared by the Department of Housing and Urban Development in Spring, 1984, indicated that the number of homeless people in Los Angeles was between 31,000 and 38,000, it raised some question as to the actual number, but it acknowledged that a problem existed.
A small sample of Los Angeles’ homeless, spent the holiday season huddled together in Tent City.
When my husband and I, came down from our cozy hilltop home to share food, clothing and money with the homeless, we found a desolate place, populated by dignified and noble people, quiet in their despair but yet not bitter in face of such adversity.
A society that lets some of its members to precariously exist roaming the streets is not much of a society indeed. A civilized society must not turn its back on those who due to circumstances beyond their control find themselves homeless.
From what we saw at Tent City,the homeless, despite the lack of basic needs, are trusting that their fellow citizens and elected officials will hear their plight and provide the emergency shelters that are urgently needed so they need not remain on the streets.
My husband and I join the homeless people of Los Angeles in their quest for housing
We hope, you too will intervene on their behalf today; tomorrow may be too late for many of them. MARTY KASPARIAN CHRISTINE KASPARIAN Beverly Hills It is time to end the shameful conditions which we have allowed to fester in Los Angeles County--the desperate circumstances of the thousands who for many reasons beyond their control are forced to live in our streets. The statistics are grim: well over 30,000 people in Los Angeles County alone (you could fill a city the size of Beverly Hills with that many people), and the number is growing.
We have seen the photos and articles in the papers, notably The Times,(which has done an outstanding job. We have watched the images of despair on television, and we’ve heard their frightened voices on radio. We experience confrontations with the sad reality in our neighborhoods and where we work--the reality that men, women, and, yes, children are struggling to stay alive by scavenging through garbage, and seeking shelter where none really exists: doorways, old cars, cardboard crates. . . . Few of us can now claim ignorance; the rest of us have no excuse. It is time to act.
Our local government agencies all continue to duck their responsibility to deal with this emergency. That’s what it is--an emergency, a disaster. They keep saying they don’t have the budgets; they need Washington to do the job for them. But right at this moment local cities, the county, and the state own vacant lots and warehouses where people could have a cot to sleep on, a hot meal and maybe a shower. The California National Guard has stockpiles of emergency relief supplies for disasters--don’t 30,000 and more homeless constitute a major disaster? In the long run federal help will probably be needed, but how can we justify going to Washington before we have done all we can to take care of the crisis ourselves?
And each of us individual citizens can do something on our own, no matter how small: We can pick up the phone or drop a card and express our concern to our elected representatives in city, county and state government; we can look in our closets for spare food, clothing and blankets, or if we can’t do anything at all, then we can just look at the next homeless person we meet on the street with a little more compassion, and even an encouraging smile. They are not “indigents” or “bums” or “crazies” or any of those vicious stereotypes. They are our fellow human beings and they deserve to be treated wit hthe same decency and kindness that we want others to show us.
One more thing: It is incredible that there are still those among us who, having benefited so richly from all the privileges and bounty of this wonderful country, are suspicious and resentful of efforts to share something so basic and minimal as a meal, a simple shelter and a little hope with those not sitting at the banquet table of prosperity. Isn’t it time to begin a new year without the heavy burden of hatred and selfishness in your hearts?
WALTER R. DOMINGUEZ Los Angeles On the first page of the Metro section on Dec. 23 there was a story of how the street people were being sheltered and cared for, until Dec. 26, that is.
Why? Because it was Christmas, and at Christmastime people become concerned and caring and try to make the lot of those less fortunate a little more cheerful for a while.
But the problems of the homeless and the needy are not solved by the temporary handouts of this time of year. It should be the country’s first priority to help these people get out of these desperate conditions and to find a way that they can improve their lives permanently, not just at Christmastime.
EVELYN KATZ Los Angeles Didn’t you feel bad about it? Did you see the picture of the Gandhi-thin, anguished, homeless protester being carted away by somber policemen from the County Hall? Is the preamble to the Constitution really being realized now: “All men are endowed by their Creator with certain inelienable rights . . . life (etc.) . . . and to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men.” Is life secured by government’s denying men a roof in winter and food?
It was not always this way in California. A generation ago, men and women were not allowed by law to sleep on the streets. If homeless, they were taken to county-supported “almshouses.”
How about a new tax on food to go to the county to provide shelter and food for the homeless?
MARILYN GRAY Tujunga Who are these people who are protesting the dismantling of Los Angeles’ Tent City? I feel that they must be outside agitators, or maybe possibly even Communists.
For surely the homeless street people of Los Angeles realized that Tent City would be coming down, along with the rest of the Nativity scenes, as soon as the holiday season was over.
I mean, after all, Christmas doesn’t last all year.
RODERICK M. BOYES Redondo Beach If Supervisor Antonovich actually believes what he states: “Overall, we are doing a good job” of caring for the homeless (Metro section, Jan. 3), he missed the whole message of Tent City.
I think we should have let Tent City stand as a clear reminder of the work we need to do. Removing the tents does not remove the problem. The problem is not tents and it’s not homeless people. These are symptoms of an increasingly uncaring and apathetic society and of the structural hurdles we place in the path of the down and out.
Those of us who were moved by the message of Tent City and the obvious need of all the homeless in our community can turn this situation around by making our elected officials, the servants of the people, such as Michael Antonovich, change the 60-day penalty and create a just system that will provide decent shelter for every homeless man, woman and child in Los Angeles.
MARY BRENT WEHRLI Los Angeles After seeing the arrest of the tent people, I’m pleased that they were. They should be grateful for what they got. But no, they want more! I’d bet that a good 80-90% of those people could work in fast-food outlets, farms, dishwashing, etc. I’m sick of paying for free handouts. They are responsible for their condition, no one else!
I’m tired of people expecting something for nothing. If they don’t want to work let them starve. I have no sympathy for them. If some of your readers think I’m one of those persons in a high income bracket. they are wrong! I happen to be a gardener who makes $10,000 a year and just make enough to pay my bills. But I’m proud that I can pay my own way because that’s the American way!
CHRIS ANDERSON Santa Barbara The article by Carl McDaniel (Dec. 27) on the street people of L.A. was the most sensitively beautiful piece I’ve read in years. Hard reality laced with poetic genius, from one who has a first-hand knowledge of what it means to be hungry and homeless. If his words do not touch the heart and soul of this city, nothing will.
As for McDaniel himself, he may call himself an out-of-work salesman--I call him a writer.
CAROL HAMLIN Canoga Park Every missile has a silo but not every old woman has a safe hole to crawl into. That would cost too much, says Republican Antonovich, echoing his role model in the Oval Office. Some people have adding machines where their hearts ought to be.
GLADY FOREMAN Los Angeles
