Edelman Assails Relief Program for Homeless as ‘Gigantic Mess’

The Board of Supervisors chairman on Thursday labeled the county’s welfare program for the homeless a “gigantic mess,” charging that its penalties are too harsh and it is doing too little to solve the problems of the most needy street people.

The county’s general relief program, serving 33,000 indigents who do not qualify for other welfare programs, “keeps people . . . either on the streets or on general relief,” Supervisor Ed Edelman said.

His remarks, the strongest attack yet on the program by a board member, came at the close of a hearing on the county’s controversial policy of cutting off shelter and food benefits for 60 days when able-bodied indigents fail to work on community service projects or search for a job.

Critics claim that the penalty, which is applied to about 5,000 people a month, is a major contributor to the homeless problem and is often imposed when applicants are late for appointments, fail to understand instructions and do not properly complete paper work.

Edelman said it appears that the penalty has been applied in an “arbitrary and capricious” manner. He added that current requirements to search for work are a waste of time, because applicants are often unprepared and unpresentable.

“We need to turn the system around so it does some people good,” Edelman said, adding that he plans to propose an overhaul that will provide “meaningful job . . . incentives, rather than penalties.”

Edelman called the hearing, which none of his fellow board members attended, because of continuing criticism of the general relief program by advocates for the homeless. Several of the advocates and street people zeroed in at the hearing on the 60-day penalty.

The county’s $90-million general relief program is officially intended to encourage self-sufficiency for those able to work, but several speakers claimed that the recipients get caught up in a maze of paper work and often are required to do menial community work--such as cleaning toilets--that does little to prepare them for regular jobs. They also claimed that many applicants categorized as able-bodied are actually mentally disabled.

Matt Lyons, a leader of the Homeless Organizing Team, said: “Putting someone out on the street for 60 days does nothing for their work ethic. . . . It moves them further and further away from employability.”

A county grand jury representative called for the 60-day penalty to be replaced with a system in which “the penalty fits the crime.”

Edelman said he will design such a system so that “it does not bankrupt the county.” Edelman said county costs for those who are forced out on the streets and become ill or are arrested are probably more than the $228 a month the county saves by imposing the 60-day sanction.

County administrators who have investigated general relief insist that it is fair. They have argued that the 60-day penalty should be retained, because any relaxation of the sanction would attract indigents from other counties and increase costs.

‘Justly Administered’

That has been a concern of the conservative majority on the board. Supervisor Deane Dana Thursday differed with Edelman, saying he believes that benefits for the homeless have been “justly administered.”

While agreeing that more must be done to identify the mentally ill among the homeless and get them disability aid, Dana said that relaxing the 60-day penalty would “open the floodgates wider” on indigent services costs.

Advocates for the homeless “want to do here what they succeeded in doing back in New York,” he said, which is “to start warehousing (in public shelters) thousands of people at the taxpayers’ expense.”