West Hollywood, County at Odds : Aid Snag May Leave Homeless in the Cold

This winter might be a little colder for the homeless who dwell in Plummer Park.

They are reluctant to sleep in underground garages and abandoned buildings because they are tired of being arrested.

The men refuse to sleep at a warming center in West Hollywood Park because they complain about persistent advances by homosexuals who sleep there.

Instead, they sleep under bushes or in secluded alleys. Their clothing is lightweight and their blankets are worn.

Hot Soup and Blankets

“Last year, when it was cold out, (West Hollywood officials) let us sleep in Fiesta Hall,” said Marcia Trujillo, one of the park’s transients, referring to the park’s recreation center. “They gave us hot soup, hot chocolate and blankets. It was real nice. I just hope they will do that again.”

They might not be able to.

Officials from Los Angeles County and West Hollywood are haggling over funds for such a shelter, and unless there is an agreement soon, Plummer Park’s homeless may be left out in the cold.

Last winter, the county paid West Hollywood $10 for each of the 100 transients sheltered in Plummer Park on “cold-weather nights”--clear and under 40 degrees or rainy and under 50.

In June, the City Council voted to spend its own funds to open a shelter in West Hollywood Park for 50 transients from 11 p.m. to 6 a.m. every night, regardless of weather.

County Help Expected

Expecting county support to care for 100 transients again this winter, city officials planned to keep that shelter open, adding bedding and food to its services, and reopen the facility in Fiesta Hall for an additional 50 homeless people.

However, county officials contend that their dollars cannot pay for existing programs--like the shelter in West Hollywood Park. Cold-weather funds, they said, can only be used to add programs--like the proposed shelter in Plummer Park.

“The county can reimburse West Hollywood for housing people in Plummer Park, but not for the people they have already been housing in West Hollywood Park,” said Larry Johnson of the county Department of Community and Senior Citizen Services.

City officials said that unless they get reimbursed for 100 people, they cannot afford to provide the staff, food and cots for a shelter in Plummer Park.

“Right now we don’t even have cots for the people in West Hollywood Park, and we don’t feed them,” said Jodi Curlee, the city’s social services administrator. “All we have been able to do is open up the gym and give them a floor where they can crash, with heat and a roof over their heads. If the county gives us the money, we can get beds and soup for this shelter (in West Hollywood Park) too.”

City authorities also said opening Plummer Park to 100 people in order to gain full funding, as well as housing 50 others in West Hollywood Park, would place too heavy a burden on staff and impose on residents near the two parks.

Lloyd Long, West Hollywood’s human services manager, called the county’s cold-weather policy unconscionable.

“Basically what the county is telling (city officials) is that if we had gone to them and asked to start two new shelters this winter, they’d reimburse us,” he said. “But because we took it upon ourselves to house people through the summer, they consider (the West Hollywood shelter) an ‘existing program’ and refuse to pay us as much as last year.”

City Councilman John Heilman said: “It seems like we are getting screwed for doing above and beyond what we are obligated to do.”

300 Homeless

City social workers estimate that nearly 300 homeless people wander throughout West Hollywood. The shelter in the West Hollywood Park auditorium is available to 50 homeless people, and, although only 30 to 40 people now sleep there each night, city authorities expect the need for shelter space to increase dramatically as temperatures continue to drop.

“The center usually isn’t filled to capacity now,” said social services worker Sue Wilcox, “but once the temperature gets down below 40, you better believe we are going to have more people at our door than we can handle.”

Sean Manning, 24, who has lived on the streets for the past 10 years, is one of those.

“Right now I’ve been sleeping in vacant houses, underground garages, whatever it takes to keep warm, but it’s getting a lot colder now, and if I’m cold, how do you think the women out here feel?” said Manning, pointing to homeless women lying beneath a tree in Plummer Park. “We need help, some place to go where the police won’t bother us.”

Despite their desperation, most of Plummer Park’s homeless refuse to take advantage of the shelter in West Hollywood Park.

Wilcox said homeless people tend to establish clusters that protect their own and rarely mingle with outsiders, so the homeless in Plummer Park would not feel comfortable sleeping under the same roof as the homeless in West Hollywood Park.

Family-Style Bonds

“It sounds silly, but these people form strong bonds to each other, like families,” she said. “There’s a lot of lying, cheating and stealing in their world, and they like to know that no one will take their belongings if they have to leave their (shopping) carts to go to the bathroom.”

Rudolph Espinoza, 29, who has lived in Plummer Park for 6 months, said he spent a couple of nights in the West Hollywood Park shelter, but after several near-fistfights, he left.

“The homosexuals there would not leave me alone,” he said. “I’d rather sleep outside with people I know--people who understand me--but I would use a shelter if it were (in Plummer Park).”

Wilcox said that if the city does not get county funds for a cold-weather shelter in Plummer Park, bus passes will be provided to transients so they can go to downtown shelters or to the Culver City armory.

Jenelle, a pregnant woman who was evicted from her Hollywood apartment three weeks ago, said: “Maybe (county authorities) should just go down to Plummer Park and see how those people live. There’s no way they can understand what we go through, worrying about whether we’re going to eat or where we’re going to sleep every night. If they saw it for themselves or talked to just one homeless person, they would find a way to open that shelter.”