Bradley Says He’s Responsible for Skid Row Raids
Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley claimed responsibility Thursday for a controversial crackdown on Skid Row homeless encampments, saying he is pleased with the results.
“I’ve looked at the sidewalks and streets since this got going, and I see that tremendous progress has been made,” Bradley said of the operation, which began Tuesday and is aimed at dismantling at least 10 homeless camps in a 50-block area of the central city.
Bradley said the raids by a task force of police, sanitation crews and social service providers are necessary for the health and safety of the homeless population as well as local merchants.
However, the mayor insisted that the operation, which he said he began planning “a number of weeks ago,” is not aimed at preventing the homeless from sleeping on the streets. Rather, he said, the purpose is to discourage the spread of sidewalk shantytowns that he said foster crime and disease.
“No effort has been made to stop people from sleeping on the street. In fact, they have been allowed to come back,” he said. “But we cannot permit the unauthorized collection of lean-tos and sofas. They are unsanitary, and they are a collection point for criminal activity.”
Despite the mayor’s support for the raids, most of the social service providers dropped out of the operation Thursday, citing various concerns, including a fear that they would be viewed as agents of the police.
A few hours before the mayor commented on the raids, four activists who operate social service centers on Skid Row were arrested for blocking a driveway in front of the office of the Central City East Assn., the business group that called for the raids on the homeless camps.
The association has assumed a leadership role in the operation and its director has accompanied police on the raids. Up to now, a number of people involved in the raids, including Deputy Mayor Grace Davis and the ranking police officer, Capt. Rick Batson, had insisted that the mayor’s office played no part in planning the operation.
The four protesters spread sleeping bags, cardboard boxes and a trash barrel used for fires--all typical of a homeless camp--in front of the driveway at 531 S. Towne Ave. and refused to move. The director of a Skid Row family day center, Alice Callaghan, told police they would not move until what she described as “the indiscriminate harassment of homeless people is stopped.”
Callaghan, John Dillon, director of Chrysalis Center, and two members of the Catholic Worker, Catherine Morris and Mary Males, were taken into custody by the police under a citizen’s arrest by the owner of the business after a vigil early Thursday afternoon. They were released on their own recognizance and must appear in Los Angeles Municipal Court on March 6.
On Thursday, the third day of the sweep, police rousted about 30 homeless people from a settlement at 5th and San Pedro streets, and from a gathering place at 4th and San Pedro. They also returned to 6th Avenue, the site of the first raid. No arrests have been made so far in the sweep.
Some of the task force members expressed misgivings about the raids. Unlike the previous two days, most of the social service workers who had been along to make referrals or interview homeless people did not join the task force.
“We are evaluating our continued role in this,” said Carol Matsui, a spokeswoman for the county Department of Public Social Services.
The Travelers Aid Society also stayed away Thursday. Earlier they had expressed frustration that the homeless scattered as police arrived and workers could talk to only a few people.
“We felt there could be changes made in these sweeps,” said Bob Butler, the society’s program director. “We’re hopeful there will be a different approach.”
“I know there’s been concern among social service providers about participating and being seen as arms of the police,” Butler noted. “Our concern was not so much how we’re perceived but the fact that people are getting displaced and they need help.”
“What we’ve done is make ourselves available for any client that may fit our criteria for psychiatric services,” said Ralph Mitchell, program director of the Skid Row Mental Health Service, which did have a clinical social worker on the sites Thursday. “In the last few days the sweep has not turned up people that have met our criteria.”
Some critics disputed the mayor’s claim that the Skid Row sweeps have been humane because they are directed at the camps and not at the people.
“Anyone present is being swept away,” said Jill Halverson, director of the Downtown Women’s Center, a residence for indigent women. “They are dispersing groups of people who have banded together for safety reasons.”
“I’m not supporting having people live in the street,” John Dillon said. “But all this is now stirring the mud, so to speak, mixing it around so you don’t notice it. It’s not visible any more. It looks nicer. The issue is there’s people with nowhere to go. Lack of housing is a real issue. There’s a very low vacancy rate down here.”
Beyond defending the operation he had set in motion, Bradley said that “the problem of the homeless is a tragic one,” and he said that the city has a moral obligation to provide shelter, safety and security.
Asked whether local businesses and the Skid Row indigent population of 11,000 to 12,000 people could ever coexist in harmony downtown, Bradley replied: “It is my hope that they can.” But he said he is troubled by increasing reports of crime from businesses in the area.
Several business people applauded the task force Thursday, although most of them said it is too early to tell whether the raids have done any lasting good.
“We are used to having people shooting drugs into their arms right outside our building. I haven’t seen that going on lately,” said Virginia Schulman, an employee of a drapery wholesale company at 6th and San Julian streets. But her boss, Si Frumkin, reported seeing criminal activity Wednesday afternoon, not long after police had conducted a raid nearby.
“Going home, I saw three men in the process of shooting up, and I saw another fellow swinging a 2-by-4 at another fellow,” he said.
