Services and Shelter for the Homeless OKd by L.A.

After months of emergency actions to shelter the homeless, the Los Angeles City Council adopted a series of measures Tuesday that its sponsors hailed as the first step toward a comprehensive policy for coping with the plight and problems of the homeless.

Among the proposals is a plan for converting city buildings in downtown, Westside, San Pedro and the San Fernando Valley to emergency shelters in cold and wet weather.

The council also agreed to establish both a city office to coordinate services for people who make their beds on the sidewalks and streets of Los Angeles and a “homeless steering committee” that would include representation from activists for the so-called “street people.”

The council’s action marks the first time that homeless issues have been formally incorporated into the city’s governmental structure. The new city office would be staffed by a coordinator of homeless services and four assistants.

‘Sensitive’ Response

City Councilman Robert Farrell, chairman of the Grants, Housing and Community Development Committee, which developed the proposals, said the measures are intended to encourage a “sensitive,” coordinated response to the homeless.

“What we’re going to do is a better job of coordinating and focusing the efforts of the city,” Farrell said. The measures adopted Tuesday were part of a broader “comprehensive homeless policy” presented to the council in draft form.

City actions in recent months have been characterized by such ad hoc measures as the opening of City Hall to shelter the homeless overnight during a January cold spell, police sweeps of homeless encampments on Skid Row and the recent authorization of a two-month urban campground on vacant land owned by the Rapid Transit District at 4th Place and Santa Fe Avenue. That campground is expected to open Monday, Deputy Mayor Grace Davis said.

Under the guidelines set forth Tuesday, officials would open specified city-owned structures for 72 hours to house the homeless whenever the National Weather Service predicts temperatures, including wind-chill factors, of 40 degrees or lower or at least a 50% chance of rain.

Sixty such buildings throughout the city have been identified as potential emergency shelters. Officials are focusing on five likely shelters--two downtown, and one each in the Westside, San Fernando Valley and San Pedro areas.

Already under study as possible emergency shelters are the City Hall portico and the Venice Pavilion on the Westside. No shelters were identified in the San Pedro area or the San Fernando Valley, although Farrell cited the City Hall annex in Van Nuys as a possibility.

“The bottom-line response is providing space and protection from the elements. That’s what this process is beginning today,” Farrell said.

Ted Hayes, leader of the homeless activist group called Justiceville, praised the council in public hearings for its attitude in approving the campground. If successful, the campground would serve as a model for other regions wrestling with the problems of the homeless, he said.

At the same time, Hayes warned that campground could encourage “a system of apartheid . . . where on a certain side of the city, you just got us poor folk.”

Meanwhile, work progressed at the vacant site at 4th Place and Santa Fe Avenue. Officials said the 12-acre campground, which will be operated by the Salvation Army, will be organized around six large tents and include 1,000 cots provided by the county, 20 portable toilets and 20 portable showers provided by the city and portable stoves and barbecues. The homeless who have their own tents will be clustered around the larger tents.

‘Shared . . . Responsibility’

Fred MacFarlane, a spokesman for Mayor Tom Bradley, said the camp “will be a shared day-to-day operational responsibility between the city, the Salvation Army and what we’re calling the homeless coordinating council,” which will include Hayes and other activists.

The council also voted to continue funding for two existing emergency shelters until Nov. 30. Those shelters are a 138-bed facility at 6th and San Pedro streets, operated by the Skid Row Development Corp., and a 90-bed shelter at 526 San Pedro St., run by the Brotherhood Crusade. The former had been scheduled to close June 30; the latter was to close at the end of August.

“This report covers everything except the one thing that would make it work, money,” Councilman Ernani Bernardi said. “Without the finances, all of this stuff is going to be a lot of hot or cold air.”

The proposed policy also lays out a course of action for the city to follow to meet transitional housing and permanent low-income housing needs for the homeless. The council voted to make the draft available for public review for 30 days.

Many of the proposals involve recommendations for Los Angeles County, which has primary responsibility for administering welfare and social services. For example, the report asked the county to provide on-site help at shelters for the mentally ill, to make the general relief process less complex for applicants and to increase funding for substance abuse programs, operating and upgrading existing shelters.