Council Strives to Divvy Up L.A.’s Homeless

When Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley proposed purchasing prefabricated housing from Utah to shelter up to 2,000 homeless and needy people, he challenged each of the 15 City Council members to find sites for the structures in their districts.

“Our homeless are scattered all over this city,” Bradley said at a September press conference. “The solutions should be all over this city.”

Little Enthusiasm

The council members reacted with very little enthusiasm.

Councilwoman Joan Milke Flores, who represents the Los Angeles Harbor area, said her district is already doing more than enough for the city’s poor and homeless.

Councilman Zev Yaroslavsky, whose district extends from the Westside to the San Fernando Valley, said through an aide that it is Bradley--not the council members--who should find locations for the housing.

Nearly two months later, Bradley has still not sent the proposed purchase to the council for action. Deputy Mayor Grace Davis, who handles homeless issues for the mayor, said last week that Bradley remains committed to the purchase, but added that she has “no idea” when the proposal will be ready.

The biggest roadblock to the proposal, several city officials said, is both political and logistic: Where do you put 630 prefabricated buildings intended to house some of the city’s most destitute residents?

Officials from several city departments are bogged down searching for available city-owned property, checking into zoning, planning and environmental issues, determining if such things as water and sewer hookups are available at the sites and trying to come up with about $6.3 million to pay for the housing.

Through it all, the officials are striving to strike a balance among the 15 council districts--looking for sites in the Valley, the Westside, the Eastside, downtown and the harbor area.

“People complain that more should be done for the homeless, but they don’t want them in their area,” Davis said. ‘We are looking at all the council districts” to take some of the housing.

Opposition Forming

Even without a specific proposal before them, opposition to the plan among some council members is already forming.

“If he is talking about using the housing for the homeless--the Ted Hayeses of the world--then I have a real problem with it,” said Councilman Hal Bernson, who represents the northwest San Fernando Valley. “The city has no right to use tax dollars for this purpose. It is really a county and state responsibility.”

Councilman Marvin Braude, whose district includes some of the most affluent communities in the Westside and the Valley, said he is “skeptical about temporary housing because they can deteriorate and spread deterioration.” Besides, he said, there is no suitable land in his district.

Yaroslavsky, while calling the prefabricated housing “a good idea,” described the effort to disperse them equally among the council districts as a bogus issue.

“I am sure the mayor will be able to identify properties in my district that would be appropriate, but I can’t see putting them in Tujunga or putting them in Chatsworth where they couldn’t be further away from homeless services,” he said.

The decision to begin sharing what one official called the “homeless burden” apparently had several roots.

At his press conference, Bradley emphasized the breadth of the homeless problem and the need to serve homeless people scattered throughout the city.

In an interview, Davis said there were philosophical and social considerations, namely, that the entire city needs to confront the homeless situation for real solutions to emerge.

And several city officials have pointed to thorny political issues, especially a feeling among some council members that the city must stop dumping its most needy residents on a few communities.

Flores, whose district stretches from Watts to Wilmington, has been one of the most vocal proponents of the burden-sharing approach. Last summer, Flores nearly killed another Bradley housing purchase--102 mobile homes intended as transitional housing for homeless families--when she learned nearly three-quarters of the trailers were earmarked for her 15th district.

“We continue to put the burden of housing the very, very low income in certain areas and that puts a strain on all services in those areas,” Flores said in an interview last week. “That is really not fair.”

Flores’ district, which includes more than half of the city’s low-income public housing units, was slated to receive more than 70 of the 102 mobile homes.

In a compromise later worked out among the City Council, the mayor and the city’s Housing Authority, Flores agreed to take 24 of the mobile homes. Five other council members--Richard Alatorre, Ernani Bernardi, Robert Farrell, Ruth Galanter and Gilbert Lindsay--agreed to take a total of 57 others, while the city continues to search for sites for the remaining 21.

As a result of the struggle over placement of the mobile homes, Flores asked the chief legislative analyst to prepare a list of the low-income housing projects, homeless shelters and transitional mobile homes in each district. Flores said she wanted to come up with a rating of sorts that would show which council districts have been doing “their share” for the city’s neediest residents.

Based on statistics gathered in August, the legislative analyst found three council members--Bernson, Braude and Council President John Ferraro--represented districts that have no low-income housing projects, no homeless shelters and are slated to receive none of the mobile homes.

The entire San Fernando Valley, which includes all or portions of eight districts, has only one housing project--the 448-unit San Fernando Gardens in Pacoima--and nine shelters with a total of 296 beds. The Valley is scheduled to take eight trailers, all of which are to be placed at San Fernando Gardens.

On the Westside, the statistics are not much different. That area, which is represented by five council members, has one housing project--601-unit Mar Vista Gardens in Mar Vista--and 15 shelters with a total of 390 beds. The Westside is scheduled to receive 15 trailers, to be placed at Mar Vista Gardens.

In contrast, Flores’ 15th District has seven housing projects--with a total of 3,709 units-- and four shelters with a total of 103 beds, according to the report. Flores has agreed to place 12 trailers each at the Normont Terrace and Jordan Downs projects.

By far the largest concentrations of facilities are in districts that cover downtown and neighboring communities. Councilman Gilbert Lindsay’s district, which includes Skid Row, has nearly 2,500 beds for the homeless, two housing projects with a total of 911 units and is set to take 12 of the trailers, the legislative analyst’s report said.

Councilwoman Gloria Molina’s Eastside district has the 549-unit William Meade Homes housing project and nine shelters with a total of 245 beds. Alatorre, whose district borders Molina’s, has four projects--totaling 1,462 units--and six shelters with a total of 103 beds.

Flores said she intends to use the information--which was presented on a large map with accompanying statistical sheets--to spur discussion among the council members when the mayor presents his proposal. The map, which illustrates the disparity in services between communities, speaks for itself, Flores said.

“It graphically demonstrates that the housing and (homeless) agencies are all concentrated in the poorer areas,” Flores said. “It seems you add to the poorness of the poor areas by putting more homeless in the areas.”

Flores distributed copies of the statistics to her colleagues, and the map was also passed around at a recent council meeting. She immediately gained allies, including Councilman Michael Woo, whose district extends from Hollywood to Studio City and has eight homeless shelters with a total of 156 beds.

“I could accept the idea that some portions of the city could have more of the low-income public housing, while others have more for the homeless,” Woo said. “But all the districts of the city need to show some responsibility for those that are less fortunate. It may be expensive, but we need to get away from the idea that some portions of the city are privileged enclaves and some are destined to forever sustain a disproportionate share of the poor.”

To other council members, however, the analyst’s report missed the mark. Bernson said that housing for the homeless needs to be placed “where the action is,” not where city officials decide is fair.

“We have a very minimal homeless problem in my district,” Bernson said. “The homeless in the downtown area are those who want to be there. That is where their friends are and where the action is. They don’t want to accept some shelter in Chatsworth.”

Braude, who shares Bernson’s general opposition to spending city funds on housing for the homeless, said the concept of creating truly equal districts is flawed.

“There are a lot of things you have in some areas that you don’t have in others,” Braude said. “I don’t think we should have garbage dumps in every district. I don’t think we should have slaughterhouses in every district. I don’t think it is necessary to have a UCLA in every district.”

Yaroslavsky agreed. “I empathize with Joan Flores, and if I had half the Housing Authority properties in my district, I would probably be saying the same thing. But councilmanic district boundaries were not drawn with social services in mind. The only thing each district has equal with the others is population.”

Some of those who work with the homeless say the problem is so pervasive in Los Angeles that there is not a district in the city without enough local homeless people to fill 26 prefabricated units--the amount Bradley said each council member would need to take for the proposal to work. The city estimates it has at least 35,000 homeless people.

“This is only a drop in the bucket compared to what the real problem is,” Toni Reinis, southern region director of the California Homeless Coalition, said of the proposed housing.

“The homeless are throughout the city, but people are still not educated as to who this population is,” Reinis said. “You say homeless to people and they still think of the bum on the street. They don’t realize they are families or the people who used to live next door.”

Councilman Robert Farrell, who has been holding public hearings on a citywide homeless policy being considered by the council, said the ultimate solution to the debate over where the prefabricated housing should go may require separating those units intended as temporary shelter for the homeless from those intended as low-income housing. The mayor has not specified how the housing would be divided.

Farrell said council members--such as Bernson and Braude--who are opposed to spending city funds on housing for the homeless may be more willing to accept housing for low-income residents in their districts.

In the end, he said, the city needs to balance its approach to dealing with homelessness, but he said it is unrealistic to expect each component of the city’s response to affect the 15 districts equally.

Flores said she agrees each district’s response may be different, but she said it is crucial that each district at least have a response.

“If you look at all the so-called negative things in the city, you see that the districts that don’t have the housing projects also don’t have the trash dumps, don’t have the transfer facilities, don’t have the wrecking yards,” Flores said.

“With every new thing that comes up, the tendency is to say, ‘Well, that isn’t that desirable a neighborhood anyway, so it wouldn’t be downgrading the area by putting it there.’ Well, that has a cumulative effect. It leads to the whole thing: When the rich get richer, the poor get poorer.”