No Place Like Home : A Year After Camp Was Closed, Despair Still Reigns on Skid Row

It was one year ago that Los Angeles’ urban campground for the homeless was closed and hundreds of itinerant street people wandered back into the alleys, empty lots and abandoned buildings of Skid Row.

What one camp official described as a “desperate attempt to help very desperate people” ended Sept. 25, 1987, and no one involved in the experiment--not the city that sponsored it, the Salvation Army that supervised it or the homeless activists that sought its creation--called it a success.

But despite the dust, noxious odors and petty crime they found at the camp, many of those street people who once called it home now speak of the four-month tent city as the good old days.

The fond rememberances, unfortunately, are more of a comment on Skid Row conditions today than the rose-colored view of hindsight.

City officials, service providers, homeless activists and men and women who live on the street generally agree that the ranks of the homeless have continued to rise in the past year, with the numbers being swelled by illegal aliens who are getting caught in the Skid Row cycle of drugs and alcohol.

Growing Cocaine Use

Cheap and available crack cocaine is superseding even alcohol as the drug of choice on the Row, and desperate young addicts are preying on other homeless men and women for their few dollars, food and even clothing.

And any sense of community and camaraderie that the homeless say they once enjoyed on the street has all but vanished under a strict Los Angeles Police Department policy that bars organized street encampments and forces the homeless to be mobile on a moment’s notice.

Despite these deteriorating conditions since the camp’s closure, city officials say there are some encouraging developments. These officials say new ideas and techniques on how to deal with homelessness were born out of the camp.

Although city officials acknowledge that they are far from solving the problems of homelessness, they feel that they have at least identified some of the tools necessary for working on the problem, and some are already being put to use.

The city’s Mobile Ombudsman Project houses city, county, state and federal social service agencies in a trailer that is trucked to locations throughout the city. It has already helped hundreds of homeless in the San Fernando Valley find jobs, housing and benefits under general relief and other programs, according to Robert Vilmur, homeless projects coordinator for the city.

Project Expansion

The project will next be taken to South-Central Los Angeles for four weeks weeks and then to East Los Angeles and then the Los Angeles Harbor area.

Other programs, such as permanent multi-service centers that would provide emergency housing, are in the proposal stage--with one plan to establish such a program at Skid Row’s Weingart Center awaiting approval from Mayor Tom Bradley.

Still other solutions are years away, including resolution of the city’s lawsuit against the county of Los Angeles.

The city is attempting to force the county to make its general relief program more accessible to the needy. The county has countered that if housing is the root of the homeless problem, it is the city and the Community Redevelopment Agency that have failed.

Some homeless advocates say the ultimate solution is many years off and is pushed farther back every day by government officials who continue to take a “Band-Aid” approach to solving homelessness and who ignore the need to build more truly low-cost housing.

“There is less housing, so fewer people have housing,” said Alice Callaghan, director of Las Familias del Pueblo, a downtown center for poor and homeless families.

Until more permanent affordable housing is available, people will continue to drift into the ranks of the homeless, she said.

“Let’s face it,” said David Bryant, a former organizer in the camp and now a consultant to the city’s homeless project, “everything that is being done is a Band-Aid. There are no meaningful solutions” being offered.

Permanent low-cost housing is the primary solution, he said. Another important need is programs that give the homeless more time to stay in one place so that they can stabilize their lives, he said. Programs should also provide more follow-up and support to make sure that the homeless not only find jobs but keep them, Bryant said.

For all the debate and controversy it caused, the urban campground was never proposed as a permanent solution, but rather as a stop-gap measure.

The tent city, as many called it, was established in response a growing number of “cardboard condo” encampments on Skid Row, which were getting bigger, more populous and permanent. Business leaders in Skid Row--or Central City East, as civic leaders prefer to call it--demanded that police enforce laws that prohibit sleeping on streets and sidewalks.

But when Police Chief Daryl F. Gates threatened to arrest offenders, City Atty. James K. Hahn said he would not prosecute. The city’s position, Hahn said, would not be defensible unless it gave the destitute an alternative to the streets.

Thus was born the experimental camp that was spread over 12 acres of a vacant RTD-owned site adjacent to the Los Angeles River on Santa Fe Street near the 4th Street overpass. And from June 15 until Sept. 25, 1987, about 2,600 people lived in tents, trailers and beneath tarps on the dirt lot--though no more than a few hundred stayed at the site on any one night.

Salvation Army officials, who operated the camp under contract with the city, acknowledged that showers leaked, drainage was poor and much of the equipment was inadequate or inoperable. Critics said conditions were unsanitary and even dangerous.

Still, service providers at the camp were able to help about 240 people find jobs or qualify for government assistance. And with the tent city in operation, authorities were able to clear out the largest street encampments--such as the string of makeshift shelters along Towne Avenue.

‘Something Good’

While little had changed to improve the lot of most of the homeless, “something good did come out of it,” Bryant said. “It made a lot of people aware of what’s going on down here.”

Although the effectiveness is debated, the community did respond with a series of programs.

During the past year the city has adopted a cold-weather policy through which it houses the homeless once temperatures drop below 40 degrees or 50 degrees if it is raining. The indigent are given vouchers good for a one-night to three-night stay at a single-room-occupancy hotel or at the least a cot in an armory or gymnasium.

The county has begun a similar program and is expanding its scope this winter.

Private agencies during the past year have added about 1,000 emergency shelter beds, bringing the county’s total to about 6,000, according to Ruth Schwartz of the Shelter Partnership.

The City Council has adopted a homeless policy, and the mayor has appointed a housing coordinator, a housing task force and a task force on Central City East.

“I’m not saying that we are perfect, but we certainly have made some substantial steps,” Deputy Mayor Mike Gage said.

In general, he said, the city is “more sensitive and aware of how to assist the homeless,” although he acknowledges there have been some unfortunate setbacks.

The city’s plan to house homeless families in 102 trailers, which cost $1.4 million, was set back when City Council members bickered and squabbled about whose district they would be placed in. Now, nearly a year later, only about half of the trailers have been placed and occupied. The rest are in storage, costing the city tens of thousands of dollars.

Similarly, the City Council refused to provide money to purchase manufactured housing units that the mayor had recommended for sheltering the homeless.

Finally, Los Angeles police in June raided a street camp just a block from City Hall with skip-loaders and dump trucks and hauled away the possessions of more than 40 homeless people. Last week the city agreed to pay each of those homeless persons $500 to compensate for their losses.

And despite the city’s programs, homeless people and most private and public agency officials agree that general conditions on the street are deteriorating.

John Nakamatsu, an official with the city’s Community Development Department, said he believes the number of homeless is growing. Although no precise estimates of the Skid Row population are available, Nakamatsu said a recent city survey of the San Fernando Valley indicated that the total number of homeless there may be several times more than the 1,000 that city workers expected to find.

“We are finding that the problem is a lot worse than we thought,” Nakamatsu said.

Officially the city has no estimate of the change in Skid Row’s population, said Vilmur, the city’s homeless projects coordinator. And Sgt. Larry Thompson, homeless coordinator for the Police Department, said he believes the population has been static over the past 12 months.

But others close to street agree with Nakamatsu that the numbers of homeless are rising. Mike Neely, a homeless activist, said he believes there are more homeless on the streets than one year ago, but they are less visible because of the police crackdown.

Gene Boutillier, emergency services manager for United Way, said, “We have increased our capacity to provide for the homeless, but we are finding more homeless.”

Schwartz of the Shelter Partnership said that despite the addition of 1,000 beds, all of the emergency housing facilities in the county are packed and turning people away.

“There’s another variable” this year that was not as apparent a year ago, Bryant said. “There are a lot more illegal (aliens) on the street, and there is nothing in the system for them.”

Nakamatsu agreed. “There are a lot of undocumented homeless. They are afraid to come out for help. A lot of them are getting into the Skid Row cycle” of alcohol and drugs, he said.

Merchants in the Skid Row area who sparked the police crackdown that led to the establishment of the urban campground say that conditions have “improved dramatically, but are still poor,” according to Larry Irvin, a public affairs consultant to the Central City East Assn.

“Crime is still high,” Irvin said, “and it is no secret that we are not satisfied with the police presence in the area.”

Interviews with several homeless people who returned to Skid Row following the closing of the urban campground revealed that most agreed that conditions are more grim by the day because of increasing crime and drug abuse.

“It’s gotten a lot worse,” said Reggie, 24, who parks his makeshift cardboard home outside the Midnight Mission. “It’s because of drugs.”

One Skid Row activist said the primary drugs are “cocaine, cocaine and cocaine.” Thompson of the LAPD agreed that use of cocaine, particularly in its cheap, smokable crack form, is “rampant.”

Drug-related arrests are up, Thompson said. But overall reported crime on the Row, while still the highest in the city, is down slightly from a year ago, he said.

“People don’t look out for each other like they used to,” Reggie said. “At the camp it was safe. People stuck together over there. Not like down here.”

Reggie said his location outside the mission is safer than most because it is a relatively high-traffic area.

James Thornton, 27, said the street “feels a lot more dangerous” than one year ago. “There’s a new breed of people down here. . . . A lot more people on drugs.”

Thornton also said that increased police pressure on the homeless to keep moving is also making life on the street more harsh. “Every week they come through with city (cleaning) crews,” he said.

“It’s harder to stay on the street now,” said Callaghan, director of Las Familias del Pueblo. “They can’t build structures” to keep out the rain and cold, she said. By having to always move on, “they have to carry less. They have to make due with less. They are sleeping in more dangerous places, and they can’t group together for safety.”

Homeless activist Neely said there is another factor missing in the quality of life on the streets.

“Before the camp, people on the street had community leaders. The communities were self-sustaining. . . . Now there is no leadership, there is no community and there is no one in the power structure that can take the place of those leaders. That’s the worst thing that has happened.”