City Offers a Refuge for Street Campers as Alternative to Jail

Mayor Tom Bradley, offering a refuge from arrest to inhabitants of illegal sidewalk encampments on Los Angeles’ Skid Row, announced Wednesday that the city will provide a “urban campground” for two months to ease their plight.

On the eve of announced police sweeps of the encampments, Bradley said that a 14-acre Metro Rail subway tract at the corner of 4th Street and Santa Fe Avenue near the Los Angeles River will be set up as a temporary camp that can house up to 600 people and be expanded to accommodate even more.

Meanwhile, Bradley said he had reached agreement with police and county officials that no sidewalk residents will be arrested if alternate shelter is unavailable.

He said the county Department of Social Services has supplied police patrol officers with housing chits good for seven days lodging in approved residential hotels and shelters in the city. These are to be given to all sidewalk residents until the chits run out, he said.

He said county officials agreed to provide the maximum number of vouchers available.

‘The Bottom Line’

“If (the county) runs out of shelter, no arrests will be made,” Bradley said. “That’s the bottom line.”

Police Chief Daryl F. Gates had warned last week that sidewalk campers would be arrested during today’s sweeps if they have not by then availed themselves of offered shelter.

Gates, in announcing the sweeps last week, complained that street dwellers had caused a 28% increase in crime. Sidewalk shelters also pose health hazards and interfere with local businesses, Gates said.

Discussing the campground plan, Bradley said the Community Redevelopment Agency will fence the land, provide water, sanitary facilities and showers, while charities raise $100,000 to maintain the site, which is owned by the Rapid Transit District. The Salvation Army will run the camp, he said.

“All of the pieces are coming together, and we expect in the next few days this site will become available,” Bradley said.

Deputy Mayor Grace Davis said tents will probably be erected there in a plan similar to a large, experimental open-air shelter in the Phoenix area that Los Angeles officials have visited. They had been considering such a plan for months.

Among the homeless on the streets of Skid Row, reaction to the new camp was guarded.

On Towne Avenue, camp dwellers who organized themselves last January into a commune-type living arrangement with shared cleanup and cooking duties, had mixed feelings. David Bryant, a 39-year-old former RTD bus driver who is a camp leader there, said he is glad that the city has moved to establish a camp but disappointed that the Salvation Army will be running it with no homeless people involved.

The success of the Towne Avenue camp, which area social service providers and police consider among the most orderly of the encampments, stemmed from the homeless themselves deciding what rules to impose, Bryant said, and then following them.

‘Not Against the Camp’

“We’re not against the camp,” Bryant said, “but we need to be involved in our own rehabilitation. They’ve never walked in our shoes.”

“I don’t know; I’d have to wait and see,” 37-year-old Tom Glenn said in camp on 4th and Los Angeles streets. He has been living on the streets for five years. “It’s a way of life,” he said.

Said Ron Mason, one of 70 people living in the Towne Avenue camp:

“What some people don’t understand is that a lot of us work. We just can’t find any affordable housing with the money we make. The hotels around here they want us to go to are full of rats and roaches. The reason we stay together on the street is for protection.”

When the agreement between Bradley and the Police Department was disclosed, Superior Court Judge Ricardo Torres dismissed a hearing on a lawsuit filed by attorneys for the Legal Aid Foundation of Los Angeles asking that the raids be enjoined because the homeless have no alternative housing.

In another development, seven homeless rights activists were arrested during a protest demonstration in the Skid Row area. The seven, including a priest, were cited and released.

A recent study by the local Community Redevelopment Agency concluded that there are about 1,000 people on Skid Row who do not find beds in rescue missions, shelters or residential hotels.

That contradicted a 1984 report by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development that estimated 30,000 homeless in Los Angeles.

Alice Callaghan, director of Las Familias del Pueblo, which has helped hundreds of homeless, said the CRA figure is probably closer to reality than the HUD estimate.

Demolition of Shelter Halted

On Tuesday, the council voted to halt demolition of a city-owned former print shop in Little Tokyo where 225 homeless people had been housed. It was to have been torn down to provide parking for police squad cars.

The council also passed a provision to initiate a lawsuit against Los Angeles County and the state government for any liability assumed by the city in its dealings with the homeless.

“We cannot continue to carry the job that is supposed to be carried by the county and the state,” Councilman Hal Bernson said. “What we are creating are revolving doors for the homeless.”