It’s Moving Day on Skid Row as the Police Move In

The day when the homeless would be removed from their sidewalk encampments on Skid Row was a day, Charles Dow said, “to keep moving.”

“I’m going to stay moving tonight,” said Dow, 37, who had already packed his belongings by Thursday morning, to be ready for the announced police crackdown on the sidewalk shantytowns.

When the controversial sweeps of tents, cardboard boxes and mattresses took place late Thursday, Dow did not want to face arrest, he said, even though he had “no place to go.”

“I’ll figure something out,” he said. The sweep area was bounded by 3rd, 7th, Main and Alameda streets, so Dow thought he would “go across 7th Street and be all right.”

The Thursday raids came a week after Police Chief Daryl F. Gates, calling the sidewalk encampments “a situation that is intolerable,” announced that the homeless living in them had seven days to get off the streets or face arrest.

The Municipal Code forbids sleeping or keeping personal property on public sidewalks. Violations are misdemeanors punishable by a $500 fine or up to six months in jail.

The raids have come under attack from social service providers and the homeless themselves on the grounds that not enough alternative shelter is available for the estimated 1,000 sleeping on Skid Row streets.

Police planned to give homeless campers emergency vouchers from the Los Angeles County Department of Public Social Services, good for three days’ hotel lodging.

Earlier this week, Mayor Tom Bradley and police officials publicly agreed that no one would be arrested for living on downtown sidewalks unless they refused alternative shelter.

Within a week the city plans to open an “urban campground” on a vacant RTD lot downtown, near the Los Angeles River. The campground was proposed by the mayor to operate for two months as another temporary housing alternative. RTD board members approved use of the land Thursday.

Much of the impetus for the clean-up came from local businessmen, including members of the Central City East Assn., who said the sidewalk encampments, which have gotten larger and more numerous in the last year, impeded their activities and caused crime. Gates charged that crime in the area had climbed 28% in the last year.

Earlier Thursday, more than two dozen critics of the police action gathered on Towne Avenue, the site of the largest, most organized and well known of the camps, to protest against dislodging the camps.

While many of the actual sidewalk campers packed their belongings and loaded into a van--to set up camp at an undisclosed location outside the sweep area--Tracy and Maggie Sturm, who drove in from Torrance, said those who are down-and-out should not take all the blame for homelessness.

“This primitive reaction to a moral issue is no answer at all,” said Tracy Sturm, a United Church of Christ pastor.

Homeless activist Ted Hayes led a chant, seconded by a dozen of the inhabitants of Towne Avenue: “The people united shall never be defeated.”

“Vouchers, that’s no answer,” said Hayes, who stood atop the bed of a small pickup truck to speak. “They’ve effectively declared war on the homeless people, using intimidation to force them into hotels.”

While other homeless activists, local social service providers and even residents from nearby low-rent hotels milled around the street and sidewalks, some held up posters and paper signs saying “Bradley Says Not Having a Home Is a Crime,” some of the businessmen pleased with the police action responded with signs of their own.

“Feel sorry for the homeless? Adopt one,” one read.

“There’s a lot of do-gooders around the city, but we’re living with this,” Tak Hamano, owner of Umeya Rice Cake Co. said, adding that his female employees are harassed by the campers. In addition, part of one exterior wall of his factory is blackened from a fire started in a sidewalk camper’s tent beside his building.

“Some of those people out there really need help, and I hope they help them,” Hamano said, but he was glad the police action was taking place. “I think it will make it much safer for my employees.”

“It’s going to be a big relief to everyone,” said Ray Welch, owner of Crest Printing on 4th Street. The sidewalk transients, he said, “are a problem. It’s been a problem . . . with their garbage and using our parking lot for a bathroom.”

In a defiant mood, several camp dwellers on Towne Avenue said they would refuse the vouchers, preferring to be arrested than to accept the authorities’ offer of a three-day stay in the county hotel.

Leonard Smith, a Towne Avenue resident, said he will not be forced from the street, and objected to the police saying he was a criminal for living on Skid Row.

‘We Are Not Criminals’

“It stands to reason that the jails are for criminals,” he said. “We are not criminals.”

Smith said the county hotels are more dangerous than the streets, displaying an eight-inch stab wound across his chest that he said resulted from a knife attack on May 27 while he was staying at one of the hotels.

“If the hotel is such a good place to stay, then we say to (Chief Gates) you go stay in the hotel and let us stay on the street where it is safe,” Smith said.

Michael Williams, 44, said, he too would be willing to go to jail. “If they’d rather spend that money on housing me, fine,” he said. “I don’t have a record, just no job. Homeless. I feel the system has to be fought, not given in to. I have nothing to lose.”

Also on Thursday, six downtown artists set up eight pieces of street art around City Hall to protest the sweeps, using signs and rag-filled figures. Dummies were placed on city benches and even perched in one tree, accompanied by signs such as “Rent a Space,” to spoof the pre-paid hotel vouchers being handed out by police.

City Atty. James Hahn, who had said he would not prosecute homeless people unless alternative housing was available, said Wednesday he would consider each arrest “on a case-by-case basis.”