Trailers Bought for the Homeless Find a Home--in Storage

Political infighting on the Los Angeles City Council, pre-election-year jitters and an apparent lack of leadership by Mayor Tom Bradley are being blamed for the city’s dismal record in finding sites for dozens of mobile homes intended to shelter homeless families.

More than 10 months after Bradley announced that the city had agreed to buy 102 two- and three-bedroom trailers from a Utah public utilities agency, 78 of them are either in storage near Torrance or in San Bernardino County. The city pays about $5,000 a month to store them.

“It seems senseless to have these trailers in a warehouse,” said one source, who along with several others familiar with the $1.5-million trailer purchase spoke only on condition they not be identified. “I know the mayor has the capacity to make things happen. It is real unfortunate that this is not happening.”

24 Trailers Placed

The city’s Housing Authority, instructed by Bradley to find sites for the trailers at its public housing projects, has had little luck in persuading council members or project tenants to accept the trailers. The authority has placed 24 trailers at three of its 17 projects.

And while several city officials--including Deputy Mayor Grace Davis--said they are optimistic that many of the trailers will be placed at churches and synagogues throughout the city, other sources said it will be a long process at best.

Many religious organizations that initially embraced the idea have since abandoned any hope of making use of trailers because of legal and technical problems as well as neighborhood and political opposition, religious leaders said.

“Even if a church is interested, this is not something that can be done without expedited support in getting it through all the building codes, sewer hookups, zoning variances and so forth,” said the Rev. Eugene Boutilier, former head of the Southern California Ecumenical Council and a strong supporter of the trailer program.

“Even though the mayor was saying we will take care of it, if the city councilperson is hostile or you get some community people who have developed some hostility toward the trailers, a congregation that doesn’t want to take on a whole lot of endless troubles is going to find other ways to help the homeless,” he said.

Frustration and anger over the stalled trailer program run high among many groups that work with homeless families, particularly since statistics show the shelters are desperately needed. County officials say families make up about a third of the estimated 35,000 homeless population, and the United Way estimates that 25% of the homeless are children. The Western Center on Law and Poverty figures that there are about 12,000 homeless families in the county, up 3,000 in the last three years.

High Demand Reported

As evidence of the need, most of the 24 trailers that have been placed at housing projects are in high demand. Four of eight trailers at San Fernando Gardens in Pacoima are empty because of vandalism and crime problems, but in Harbor City where six trailers were placed in March, 10 families already have moved on to permanent housing.

Tempers have also flared over the trailer issue among some junior and senior high school students who have taken it upon themselves to speak up for their homeless peers. The Los Angeles Student Coalition, which has members from about 30 schools, held a demonstration Saturday at the storage yard near Torrance. About 100 young people chanted and held up signs critical of the city’s poor record in placing the trailers.

“The trailers are for families, and families have kids, and that is who we want to target,” said Susan Goldberg, a 14-year-old coalition member from Echo Park. “Our basic equation is that an address and phone equals a job or school.”

While there are competing theories about where the blame lies for the placement problems, politics seems to be the central theme.

Some fingers point at Bradley for dumping the trailer deal in the council’s lap last summer and then walking away. When several council members challenged the mayor and refused to take any trailers, the critics say, Bradley did nothing to twist their arms. Several sources speculated that the mayor wanted to avoid a head-on collision with homeowner groups that would most assuredly fight his efforts to locate trailers in their neighborhoods.

‘So Much Opposition’

“There is so much community opposition to the trailers that it is very difficult for Tom Bradley in an upcoming election year to place them,” one source involved with the trailers said. “It is not because we can’t do anything; it is because we won’t.”

Others point to stubborn City Council members, many of whom rejected the trailer idea from the beginning. One source involved in bringing the trailers to Los Angeles said Councilwoman Joan Milke Flores, whose district was initially slated to receive about 70 of the trailers because of the large number of housing projects there, acted as a “domino” when she insisted that the trailers be distributed more evenly among the city’s 15 council districts.

“She just threw the whole thing off,” the source said. “Once she balked, then the rest of them came along. . . . It is the council that screwed this project, not the mayor.”

Three council members--Flores, Richard Alatorre and Ernani Bernardi--have trailers in their districts. The Housing Authority is negotiating to place nine more in Flores’ district and is also working with Councilmen Gilbert Lindsay and Robert Farrell to put trailers at projects in their districts.

Councilman Zev Yaroslavsky, expected to challenge Bradley in next year’s mayoral election, was an early critic of the trailer plan, saying the mayor should have found sites for the trailers before committing the city to buy them. Last week Yaroslavsky reiterated that the trailer purchase “was not a prudent financial decision on the part of the mayor,” but he said blame for the placement problems extends beyond the mayor’s decision to buy the trailers.

‘Enough Blame to Go Around’

“I think there is enough blame to go around to everybody,” he said. “Basically, everybody dropped the ball. All over the city, whenever there was an alternative, opposition surfaced. Nobody wanted to ruffle any feathers. Nobody wanted to take the political heat. I think it is a sad commentary.”

Community opposition to the trailers has kept them out of the Mar Vista Gardens public housing project in West Los Angeles, where the city planned to place seven of them. Councilwoman Ruth Galanter, who originally said she would allow the trailers at the project, backed down after tenants and nearby homeowners objected because of crime and other problems in the area.

In Watts, where the city has four public housing projects, there are no trailers because of Flores’ refusal to take them. Flores has allowed six trailers at the Normont Terrace housing project in Harbor City, and she originally agreed to place 12 trailers at Jordon Downs in Watts. In December, however, she backed out of the Jordon Downs deal, saying the Housing Authority should fill vacant units in the project first.

A proposal to house homeless veterans and their families in 15 trailers on the grounds of the Veterans Administration Medical Center near Westwood was abandoned in March when nearby Brentwood residents protested that the trailers were being forced on the community. In recent weeks, VA officials have quietly reopened discussions with the city, this time without involving local homeowners.

Private Locations Sought

Deputy Mayor Davis, who has handled the trailers for the mayor, said the mayor’s office is working diligently to place the trailers, but she said it is taking longer than expected because of the need to find private locations--such as churches and synagogues. She acknowledged that the mayor’s office also needs to do a better job “lobbying” and “educating” council members.

“I just assumed that we were going to site them at the housing projects,” Davis said. “There is no accounting for public sentiment.”

Flores, who bristles at suggestions that she was responsible for the placement problems, predicted that the city will have better luck with the trailers once success stories such as those in Harbor City become better known. Others, however, said setbacks, such as the vandalism and crime problems at San Fernando Gardens, will only embolden opponents.

“It is a slow program to show success,” said Susan Cleere Flores, director of human services for the city. “But we are moving forward. . . . I think in six months you are going to be able to come back and write some good stories.”