Homeless Mark Empty, Hopeless Christmas
A three-foot-tall Christmas card--signed by homeless people. An empty, five-foot-tall gift package. Banners that read “Raise General Relief” and depict bag ladies as well as skulls and crossbones.
The Homeless Organizing Team, a coalition of service organizations and street people, Thursday unveiled a different kind of holiday observance on the grounds of the old State Building, site of last year’s Tent City encampment of street people.
The event opened a 17-day vigil that will culminate with presentation of the Christmas card to the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors, along with petitions asking for reforms in the county’s general relief program and a quilt being made and decorated by street people as the vigil proceeds.
Pointing to the empty gift box, made of see-through plastic and topped by red ribbon, Mary Brent Wehrli of the Homeless Organizing Team said: “That’s symbolic of what the homeless have for this holiday season--nothing.”
The homeless group obtained a permit to post more than 200 multicolored banners with stark messages along 1st Street between Broadway and Spring Street. About 75 sympathizers and onlookers showed up along with several reporters.
The ceremony featured speeches bby Supervisor Ed Edelman and others, a poetry reading and a quintet of street people singing one of their own compositions, “Out on My Own (Living Alone).”
“Tent City made people aware of the plight of the homeless,” Wehrli said. “This year we want to make people conscious of the causes.”
Edelman called for an increase in the relief payment of $228 per month for welfare recipients who work at county jobs, adding that the state should make more funds available for the homeless. He also condemned the 60-day penalty period imposed on welfare recipients who fail to comply with aid requirements, charging the sanction was often levied in cases of “minor infractions.”
Then the crowd heard from two Skid Row residents--Joe Clark, who said his $228 payment did not cover the $240 rent he must pay, and Kelly O’Connell, who said his monthly payment was cut off for 60 days after he missed an appointment with his welfare worker because of illness.
“Most people out there probably don’t even know that able-bodied welfare recipients in the county must work to collect the general relief payment,” Wehrli said. “And they (the homeless) don’t have the possessions the rest of us depend on to get to work or make appointments.”
Matt Lyons, another spokesman for the homeless group, said his organization needed the support of three supervisors to effect the changes it seeks. While Edelman and Supervisor Kenneth Hahn have been sympathetic, Pete Schabarum, Deane Dana and Mike Antonovich have opposed such revisions.
“If there was an increase in the payment here, there would be a danger that even more homeless would be drawn to the area,” said a spokesman for Dana.
“We just don’t have the money,” said a spokesman for Antonovich. “We cut just about everything in the most recent budget.”
Wehrli said the site will be staffed 24 hours a day until Jan. 5 so that donations of clothes and money can be collected.
A Christmas Eve service is planned as well as other events and performances.
But scheduling impoverished entertainers is not easy. A young man calling himself Sunshine--a member of the quintet that performed Thursday--said a group of homeless street singers in Venice hopes to perform at the vigil but so far has been unable to obtain transportation.
