The Skid Row Sweeps: Staking Out Positions : Bradley Seeks to Distance Himself From Raid Policy

Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley distanced himself Tuesday from repeated sweeps of Skid Row homeless camps by police and sanitation crews, a controversial operation for which Bradley claimed responsibility last week.

While continuing to defend the sweeps, Bradley said he had not authorized them, although he said they “paralleled” a clean-up campaign for the area that he said he had called for several weeks ago.

Bradley’s remarks Tuesday came shortly before a Superior Court judge ordered the city to post notices of the sweeps 12 hours before they occur, to allow occupants of the camps time to gather their belongings and relocate.

Judge Ricardo A. Torres was responding to a request by a cadre of lawyers, some from the ACLU, asking him to require the city to hold hearings before seizing any property during raids on homeless camps. Torres rejected that request but agreed to hold another hearing on the matter March 12.

However, Torres made it clear that he believes that the sweeps, aimed at dismantling a number of Skid Row encampments, were unnecessarily hard on the camps’ occupants.

“Ten minutes to pick up all your belongings does not appear to be reasonable notice,” Torres said. “We’re talking about the ones who are down and out, who have absolutely nothing. They are left on the streets, but they do have rights.”

Deputy Mayor Grace Davis said Tuesday that Bradley had mistakenly assumed responsibility for the sweeps because he had confused one task force for another.

“The mayor confused task forces. He had thought that one (the one conducting the sweeps) was one he had convened.”

Davis, who has insisted all along that a group of Skid Row merchants and social workers were responsible for the sweeps, said she had informed Bradley of their plans in a memo she sent him earlier this month.

Last week, Bradley said that the sweeps were being carried out by a task force of city agencies that he had assembled. But Tuesday, speaking to largely black audiences during a tour of South-Central Los Angeles, the mayor offered an account that was more in line with Davis’ version of what happened.

He said the sweeps were “a separate effort organized by the Police Department, county agencies of health and social services and some of the providers of shelters to the homeless. . . . They organized that on their own, sort of a parallel program to complement the one I was concerned about.”

He said that his program is “now getting under way (and) involves all city departments responsible for the cleanliness of those streets.”

In defense of the sweeps, Bradley said Tuesday they are “working very responsibly. No one is being arrested for sleeping on the streets, although the law prohibits that. No one is seeking to dispossess the homeless. We are simply opposed to the dirt, the filth and the unhealthy conditions where the encampments are located. The lean-to shacks they are putting up, the couches on the sidewalk and the other hazards to health and safety are being removed. We’re going to clean up that neighborhood. We want that area to be attractive and we want to protect the homeless from those who prey upon them.”

Bradley also defended his record of providing relief for the homeless.

“Nobody in this city has greater compassion for the homeless people in this city,” he said. “You look at the record of the last few years of every one of my activities that dealt with funding and improving conditions for them,” he said, citing a $60 million-a-year expenditure for homeless shelter.

Bradley’s claim, however, is not borne out by reports filed by the city’s Community Redevelopment Agency, which is responsible for most of the city’s commitment to the needs of the homeless population. CRA records show that over the last 10 years about $40 million has been spent on shelter in the Skid Row area and about $58 million citywide.

Times staff writer Roxane Arnold contributed to this story.

Supervisors approve $33-million increase in welfare payments. Page 6.