Wrong Move . . .

The picture was not a pretty one: police and street crews sweeping away the pathetic, ramshackle encampments of the homeless on Skid Row. The sweep started on Wednesday, and, even as the protests grew louder and the evidence of injustice mounted, it continued on Thursday.

The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors, with its cold refusal to provide the shelters required to address the problem, and Mayor Tom Bradley, whose forces were unleashed to remove the encampments, are responsible. The shame will be shared by all the city.

There is no objection to using all of the authority at the city’s command to roust the drug peddlers and criminals who have moved onto Skid Row. The police know where they are, and have the duty to remove them and the encampments from which they operate. And there will be no objection to removing the remainder of the encampments--but not now, not until there is shelter for those living there.

That is the responsibility of the county supervisors. But instead of meeting the responsibility, creating new dormitory and other shelter facilities for the homeless, they have chosen a program that has only made matters worse. The emergency county vouchers provided to the homeless are displacing the permanent Skid Row population from the old hotels that they would normally inhabit. Hotel operators can make more money accommodating short-term clients on vouchers than long-term clients on relief checks. As a result, rents are being driven beyond the means of the permanent population, whose members find themselves back on the sidewalks, recycled into homelessness themselves by the irresponsibility of the county board. This will only worsen until the supervisors accept the fact that there is no alternative to investing in additional shelters.

In the meantime, the city has lent itself to a cruel policy of removing from makeshift shelters those who have no place to go. The strategy can delight only Central City East, the business organization that is fighting to bar any expansion of shelters on Skid Row and shows little sympathy for the strategy of the Community Redevelopment Agency to preserve and enhance Skid Row as a place where the poor can live in dignity.

The mayor’s office says that it was not involved. Why not?