Board in Standoff on Homeless Task Force

Conservative Republican members of the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors Tuesday blocked an effort to establish a joint city-county task force on the homeless, fearing it might be designed to help the reelection efforts of Los Angeles’ Democratic mayor, Tom Bradley.

In one of their bitterest clashes in recent months, board members traded attacks about their motives but failed to agree on a response to growing criticism that local government efforts to deal with the county’s estimated 25,000 homeless have been fragmented and ineffective.

While the board is officially nonpartisan, the 2-2 standoff----Supervisor Pete Schabarum was absent----was steeped in disputes between Republicans and Democrats and highlighted the increasing politicization and jockeying for leadership on the homeless issue.

‘An Ugly Thing’ “This is an ugly thing,” liberal Democratic Supervisor Kenneth Hahn whispered to reporters during the heat of the debate.

The board’s only other liberal, Chairman Ed Edelman, had proposed creation of the task force to improve the coordination of a variety of city and county efforts now under way to improve and expand emergency shelters and other programs. The county already has its own task force, but Edelman felt it important to join with the city because the bulk of the homeless are there.

Edelman, a Westside Democrat who represents the downtown area and has worked with the mayor on the homeless issue, said it is essential to include Bradley and a representative of the Board of Supervisors--along with representatives of various key city and county agencies--on any inter-agency task force.

‘Big Political Football’ He said the elected officials are needed to ensure that solutions do not become mired in bureaucracy. Edelman, a former Los Angeles city councilman, said little gets done at City Hall without the mayor’s blessing and excluding him “just doesn’t make sense.”

But conservative Republican Supervisor Deane Dana suggested that Edelman’s proposal would “make a big political football out of this.”

When it was clear the conservatives would not go along, Edelman launched an uncharacteristically strong attack on his colleagues, calling their action “petty,” “ridiculous” and “political hardball.”

“It’s just irresponsible to play politics on this issue,” Edelman said after the meeting. “Doing it to help or hurt one candidate or another is unconscionable.”

Dana and fellow Republican Supervisor Michael D. Antonovich, both close allies of Gov. George Deukmejian, who narrowly defeated Bradley in 1982, acknowledged afterward that they were concerned that the task force might be used to boost Bradley’s image.

“You create a political hype when you have a campaign,” Antonovich told The Times. “We’re approximately 12 weeks away from the (mayoral) election, and I think the issue ought to be resolved without political hype.”

The mayor’s main opponent in the mayoral race is Councilman John Ferraro, who is a Democrat but who, as a more conservative candidate, has lined up Republican supporters.

Asked if he feared Bradley would take advantage of the issue in the campaign, Dana said, “I would think so.”

“I cannot believe the Board of Supervisors would politicize a crisis of the proportion of the homeless in this city,” said Bradley’s press spokeswoman, Ali Webb.

Dana, who earlier initiated the county’s effort to identify shelters for the homeless, complained that there has been a rash of activities by other supervisors in recent weeks on the homeless issue “without proper coordination.” In lieu of Edelman’s city-county task force, Dana called for creation of another a intracounty committee that would “get our house in order.”

Later, San Fernando and Antelope valleys representative Antonovich pushed for exclusion of Bradley and inclusion of suburban city officials on Edelman’s task force, saying “5 1/2 million people (outside the City of Los Angeles) would be disenfranchised” by the makeup of the panel if it focused solely on Los Angeles.

Edelman said his proposal was intended to target the Central City homeless problem, where it is estimated thousands of people are living on the streets. “I think it’s important to try to limit the scope . . . to the one area where the problem is most acute,” he said, adding that suburban officials could be involved in other ways.

Yet another clash over the homeless with strong political overtones may be ahead. The mayor and one of his closest advisers, county labor chief William Robertson, were the prime movers behind the last week’s quickly hatched plan to erect a temporary Skid Row shelter, which needs county money to operate. Robertson, whose AFL-CIO union represents many county workers, is the conservatives’ arch foe and led an unsuccessful campaign to oust Dana last year.

The 100- to 200-bed plywood dormitory, which is intended to replace some of the beds lost when the much-publicized downtown “tent city” came down after the holidays, is nearly complete. However, it is still not clear where the estimated $250,000 in operating revenues will come from.

City officials, saying housing the indigent is primarily a county responsibility, are applying pressure on the county board to help fund operation of the center. “We can’t run this without the county,” said Martha Brown Hicks, president of the city’s Skid Row Development Corp., the nonprofit agency that will run the center.

However, the conservatives are concerned about the precedent that funding the shelter might set if it accepts anyone off the streets as planned. Currently, the county only provides emergency shelter assistance for those who look for work and meet other requirements for general relief.