Running on Empty : Rising Number of Street People Confounds Communities Whose Resources Are in Short Supply

In the historic Fairfax District of West Los Angeles, where the strictest of Old World standards still apply, Morris Siegel is painfully out of place.

He has a habit of falling asleep on busy street corners and he keeps a shopping cart packed full of cardboard at his side. His ill-fitting clothes are filthy and his weathered face is obscured by a mangy gray beard and a baseball cap.

‘Used to Be Better’

His thoughts do not merely wander; they are derailed with startling swiftness. Yet he occasionally gets himself on track. “Things used to be better,” Siegel, 70, said last week as his sat in the heart of the largely Orthodox Jewish area. “They weren’t as blocked up as they are today.”

Morris Siegel and thousands of other homeless people like him on the Westside are still waiting for things to get better. Several years after large numbers of vagrants started appearing on street corners, in alleys and in parks, they are learning that an affluent society remains woefully unprepared for them.

The down and out in Beverly Hills can still be found sleeping on benches and in alleys. On Hollywood’s Walk of Fame a tourist is far more likely to spot a homeless person than a celebrity. Neighboring West Hollywood continues to receive a rash of complaints about vagrants harassing elderly people. Derelicts hold sway over some of Santa Monica’s most fashionable parks. And Venice Beach has become the site of a multicolored tent city for the homeless.

If anything, officials say the vagrant population on the Westside is growing and that the attendant problems are becoming more serious.

“We provide a whole range of services. But we need more of everything,” said Barbara Stinchfield, community development manager for Santa Monica.

Paltry Portion of Funds

Officials say there are as many as 5,000 homeless people on the Westside but fewer than 500 emergency shelter beds to serve them. Outreach workers are unable to handle even a fraction of the cases. And the Westside receives a paltry portion of Los Angeles County funding for the homeless, even though it has the second highest concentration of vagrants outside of downtown Skid Row.

One study has shown that the Santa Monica-Venice area, which has the highest number of homeless people on the Westside, receives only $5 million of the $184 million spent by the county on homeless services each year.

As time passes, the homeless on the Westside, as many as half of whom may be mentally ill, are becoming somewhat rooted in the communities. A recent police report about a vagrant viciously attacking a dog called the homeless person a “resident” of Beverly Hills. In Venice, a vagrant named Chuck Sladky holds a top position on a homeless task force.

‘A Creative Community’

Sladky said he is like any other resident active in the community: He has a stake in Venice and wants to make things better. “This is a creative community,” he said recently. “We solve our own problems here.”

Some vagrants try to maintain a sense of self-esteem. Thomas J. Wasserberg, gaunt and sunburned after spending five years in and around Venice, called homelessness a myth. “The term homelessness is vicious propaganda,” Wasserberg said, just before getting involved in a bitter screaming match with a merchant. “America is everybody’s home.”

Yet the Wasserbergs of the world are still largely regarded as pariahs by more conventional segments of the community. Santa Monica City Councilwoman Christine E. Reed said residents constantly complain about the homeless.

“There is real hatred in the hearts of many citizens,” Reed said. “The people who live here don’t understand why we allow this to continue.”

West Hollywood Mayor Alan Viterbi said he hears the same complaints. Los Angeles City Councilman Michael Woo, whose district includes Hollywood, said he gets mixed reactions from residents. “Some people think that the homeless should be taken care of in areas far away from their neighborhoods,” Woo said. “Others are willing to accept far more responsibility for them.”

Mary Lee Gray, an aide to Los Angeles County Supervisor Deane Dana, who represents the coastal area, said the number of homeless people is increasing throughout Southern California because of the state’s favorable climate and liberal reputation. The Westside is especially popular for its beaches and easy bus access to Skid Row. Local agencies try to coordinate services, but Gray said the task has become overwhelming.

In frustration people from different levels of government tend to blame one another.

Survey of Homeless

“The City of Los Angeles is doing nothing” on the Westside, Gray said. “They are putting all of their money into Skid Row.”

“We definitely think that the county should be doing more,” said Jodi Curlee, social services administrator for West Hollywood. “We need to work as a group.”

But what should be done is another puzzling question. In a recent survey by the Venice Task Force on the Homeless, vagrants blamed their lot in life on economic pressures, stress, family problems, mental breakdowns and joblessness. More than a third had been homeless for a year or longer and more than half said they were seeking employment. Yet hardly any had applied for benefits.

A suggestion for starting a hot meal program in the evenings got the most favorable response. There was also a strong interest in overnight shelters.

Rhonda Meister, director of a Venice social service agency called the St. Joseph Center, said short-term overnight shelters, especially facilities for the mentally ill people on the streets, are the most pressing need.

“There is not adequate shelter on the Westside. That’s a common fact,” Meister said. “As a community we need to find some way to meet the need.”

Privately, however, government officials say a large-scale shelter program is impractical because residents will not allow the facilities in their neighborhoods.

In Venice last week, some residents started circulating a petition against a proposal to use the Venice Pavilion on Ocean Front Walk as a shelter. The Venice Action Committee, which was behind the petition drive, called the idea the “folly of all time.”

Galanter Role

The task of easing Venice’s vagrant problem--no one really expects a solution--has fallen to Los Angeles City Councilwoman Ruth Galanter. She has scheduled a hearing on the homeless for Sept. 10, and said one of her first priorities will be determining how many homeless people live in the beach community.

In its recent report, the Venice Homeless Task Force claimed that there may be as many as 2,500 vagrants in Venice. But Gray from Dana’s office said the number is less than 1,000. Although Venice has had a homeless problem for several years, Gray said residents ran out of patience when vagrants recently started drifting in from Skid Row, pitching makeshift tents on the beach that they jokingly called “sando-miniums.”

Residents have also become alarmed about crime committed by the homeless. They claim that vagrants are guilty of offenses ranging from panhandling and stealing to drug dealing and soiling private property. “I live off of Ocean Front Walk and the homeless have become aggressive in ways they weren’t in the past,” said Jo Giese, a Venice activist. “It has become a wholly different environment.”

Giese and others are convinced that the problem will become even worse when Santa Monica completes a sweep of homeless people living in the bluffs along Palisades Park on Monday. Police and others estimate that as many as 100 vagrants live in the popular park, which offers a spectacular coastline view.

The park evictions represent the latest chapter in Santa Monica’s largely unsuccessful efforts to deal with the homeless.

Vagrants first started sweeping into the city several years ago and instantly became fixtures in parks and on city streets. In response to residents’ demands for action, the city now spends close to $1 million annually on homeless social services--far more than any city its size. It also has taken the county to court on grounds that county services for the mentally ill homeless are inadequate.

But officials concede that they are having little impact. The homeless are said to number roughly 1,000 in Santa Monica.

‘Band-Aid Approach’

“Our city bends over backward to help these people and we just get more of them,” Reed said. “It’s a Band-Aid approach because it’s not supported by enough communities in the region.”

Yet there are some small success stories. One of them is Turning Point, a shelter that houses up to 35 homeless people in the basement of a Santa Monica church. Betty Macias, the director, said the program provides a stable environment and meals for those willing to try to get back on their feet.

The residents, who are men and women of all ages, start arriving at the shelter at dusk. Each is given a chore to perform, such as setting up the sleeping area or preparing for dinner. There is a television in the corner of the darkened room and a cafeteria-like dining area. Macias said the average stay at the shelter is 30 to 60 days. The success rate is about 50%.

James Deloach, 27, is just about to complete the program. The Quebec native, who said he once had a cocaine habit, was homeless for several months before finding Turning Point. “My only advice to people is that before you put a homeless tag on someone, look at him,” Deloach said. “We are not all bums. We are people who have run into some bad situations at every turn.”

Tom Smith, a 41-year-old truck driver from Georgia, was homeless for six months after his divorce. He is trying to save enough money to get back into trucking. Elizabeth, 45, who asked that her last name not be used, is a nurse from the San Fernando Valley who fell on hard times after her mother died.

With Turning Point’s help, she expects to regain her job soon. “Certain things set you back,” she said. “But I know I won’t be homeless again.”

At Project Homebase in West Los Angeles, the rehabilitation work is more specialized. Robby Markovic and Gina Golde spend their days cruising the Westside in a van, looking for mentally ill vagrants who may be unable to help themselves. “We have noticed that there are more people in all of our areas,” Markovic said recently. “The numbers just seem to be amazing.”

Distributes Food

Project Homebase’s territory stretches from Hollywood to the ocean. Markovic said that he and Golde meet with five to 10 people a day, dispensing food and counseling the most desperate of the street people.

Sam, a gaunt man in rags who can usually be found on a bench at the corner of Santa Monica Boulevard and Bundy Drive, is a regular sight for project workers. On a recent weekday he jumped off his bench and fled when Markovic and Golde pulled up in the van. “I don’t want to chase him if he’s agitated,” Markovic said.

Robert lives in a Beverly Hills park. After seven months of counseling he has just started responding to Markovic and Golde. Another of the homeless people in Beverly Hills is named Margaret. She has lived in the park for several months, but insists that she actually owns a home in Beverly Hills.

Mayor Benjamin H. Stansbury said Beverly Hills has been lucky when it comes to the homeless because the city so far has not been overrun. “We have homeless people, but for the most part they are regulars who have been here for quite some time,” Stansbury said. “The city may be too foreboding.”

Officials say Hollywood and West Hollywood are not as fortunate. Gray estimated that there are a total of 1,000 homeless people in the two communities. They can be found all along the Walk of Fame on Hollywood Boulevard--some of them teen-age runaways. They can also be seen on Santa Monica Boulevard, rummaging through the trash in dumpsters and sleeping on bus benches.

Both communities offer social services, but both could also use quite a bit more. “It is still a major problem,” said Hollywood-area Councilman Woo.

Salvation Army Facility

Woo said that residents have been especially upset over a Salvation Army facility on Hollywood Boulevard that provides services for the homeless because it is viewed a magnet for troublemakers.

“Some people relieve themselves in the surrounding neighborhoods,” Woo said. “Panhandlers also upset people to some degree.”

Social services administrator Curlee said West Hollywood is spending about $230,000 on homeless services this year. Yet the city continues to receive complaints from people who claim that vagrants are harassing them.

“We have people who won’t go to Skid Row,” Curlee said. “They feel that this is a safer community.”

“We don’t want to be a magnet for the homeless,” Mayor Viterbi added. “But how can one morally mistreat these people?”

Los Angeles County Supervisor Edmund D. Edelman, who represents the two areas, said more services are needed but that money is limited.

“You try to put resources where the need if greatest,” Edelman said. “But we are discovering that the need is great everywhere today.”