Ever So Humble : Homeless Helped by Emergency Housing Plan
Constance Marjaui looked over the empty two-bedroom public housing apartment in Boyle Heights and admitted that it was not paradise.
“It gets discouraging coming home at night,” said Marjaui, who lives in the unit with her 2-year-old son, Naeem. “There’s loud music . . . a chorus of dogs, people making noise. Sometimes I can’t sleep.”
Even though the apartment’s only furniture right now is two sleeping cots, the unit in the Pico Gardens housing project on East 1st Street is better than Skid Row. “Anything is better than living in the streets,” she said.
Marjaui, 38, who has been homeless since arriving in Los Angeles six months ago from New York City, is one of about 250 homeless people who have been briefly put up in City Housing Authority apartments under an unusual 90-day emergency program that began in January to get transients off the streets during a cold snap.
The cold weather, which saw overnight temperatures dip into the 30s and contributed to the deaths of four transients, prompted government agencies to institute several temporary plans to help the homeless.
Under the emergency housing plan, homeless families, averaging in size from four to six people, were screened by social service agencies for 34 units citywide that the Housing Authority set aside for the purpose. City officials asked the agencies to screen applicants since the Housing Authority did not have the staff to do so. Marjaui gets the apartment, which normally rents for about $180 a month, for free.
The destitute wino, who to some has come to symbolize the transients of Skid Row, was not considered for placement. Instead, officials tailored the program for needy families that have fallen on hard times.
City housing officials acknowledge that the program is not a permanent solution since it has affected a small fraction of the thousands of transients who live downtown. But it seems to have accomplished what the housing commissioners intended it to do.
“At this point, we have provided shelter to a lot of families, who have gone on to find permanent homes,” said Steve Renahan, a city housing analyst who has kept a close eye on the program.
Others have moved on to other temporary housing. “And some have just moved on to parts unknown,” he conceded.
Families housed under the measure have spent an average of three weeks in the housing units. After that, the social agencies that screened the families help find other accommodations, Renahan said.
The temporary housing of the homeless has delayed the placement of applicants who have already waited for several months for a public-housing unit. But in most cases, the extra wait has been less than a month, officials said.
So far, few problems between the homeless and their public-housing neighbors have been reported. In a San Pedro project, officials said, one homeless family of four was given a Welcome Wagon-type greeting. Other families have been given packages of clothing by neighbors.
At Pico Gardens, most residents were unaware that Marjaui and her infant son have been in their midst for the last two weeks.
“Personas sin hogar (homeless people) . . . here?” one woman from Mexico asked incredulously. “I had no idea.”
Some social service agencies are using an unusual tactic in the screening process that they hope will prod homeless people toward self-sufficiency. Those accepting an apartment are required to sign a “contract.”
Based on individual needs, the heads of families have signed agreements promising to show up for counseling sessions for employment, food or a permanent home. If they fail to live up to the agreement, they can be recommended for eviction. So far, no one has been evicted for failing to live up to such agreements.
Staffers at Para Los Ninos, a nonprofit agency in Skid Row, have used the so-called contract as an incentive to improving the lot of those it helps.
“We’re not interested in a Band-Aid approach,” said Armando Ontiveros, director of Para Los Ninos’ family crisis center. “We get them to concentrate on their problems. We want to break the cycle that puts them on the streets.”
In the case of Marjaui, Ontiveros and case worker Maria Sturcke required her to save money, something she had been unable to do in the past, and to work as an aide at Para Los Ninos.
“I’ve saved $800 so far,” said Marjaui, who worked in New York as a word processor.
The ultimate goal of the contract, Sturcke said, is to have Marjaui’s three children live with her in a permanent home here. Now, one son, 15, lives in New York and the other, age 7, lives in a foster home in the Los Angeles area.
The emergency program, like other government attempts to grapple with Los Angeles’ homeless problem, has come under some criticism. For one thing, city housing officials have been criticized for not doing more to help battle homelessness.
“I don’t think a (public housing) unit by itself makes a program,” said Dave Christiansen, director of the Harbor Interfaith Shelter in San Pedro. “What makes a program is a staff or some type of supportive services. The housing people haven’t given us any support to help us.”
Other homeless activists contend that the Housing Authority should set aside more units on a permanent basis for needy families trying to get back on their feet. “They could work closely with those of us who don’t have enough beds to help all the people who come to us,” one activist said.
City officials respond that there are not enough apartments or Housing Authority workers to do what the activists suggest. “There are too many people on waiting lists already for an apartment,” said one housing staffer, who asked that his name not be used.
The authority operates 8,700 units in 21 projects throughout the city. Depending on the project, there is an average waiting list of between two and three months.
Officials at several Skid Row agencies also have been grumbling privately at the prospect that the emergency program probably will not be extended beyond its scheduled expiration date of April 30.
City Housing Authority analyst Renahan said the program is not likely to be extended since it was designed to help out during the winter.
In the meantime, Marjaui and her son face an uncertain future once their stay at Pico Gardens ends next week.
“I don’t know where we’ll end up,” she said. “But I’m trying to help myself.”
