Poll Shows Homeless as Priority in Hollywood

Shelters and services for the homeless, low-cost medical care, mental health services, job-training programs and day care centers have been identified by community leaders as Hollywood’s most pressing social needs, according to a survey conducted for the Los Angeles Community Redevelopment Agency.

The survey is the agency’s first step toward coming up with a plan to spend millions of dollars on social programs in the 1.7-square-mile Hollywood redevelopment project--the only such effort in the city’s 18 redevelopment areas. The plan is meant to deflect criticism that urban renewal deals exclusively in bricks and mortar, ignoring human needs and concerns.

Spending Plan

The survey was presented Wednesday night to the Hollywood Social Needs Committee, a group set up by the CRA and Los Angeles City Councilman Michael Woo. The committee will spend the next several months--using the survey data as a foundation--to draft a spending proposal. Its recommendations will be reviewed by the Hollywood Project Area Committee, a citizens advisory panel to the CRA, and eventually forwarded to the CRA board.

“Now we have a really solid base from which to proceed,” said Rabbi Gilbert Kollin, a committee member.

The Hollywood Redevelopment Plan requires the agency “to expend or cause to be expended” on social programs an amount equal to 10% of the increased property taxes available to it because of higher real estate values due to new development. It is the only redevelopment plan in the city with such a requirement, agency officials said.

The CRA has not projected how much tax money will become available for social needs over the project’s 30-year life. The agency has estimated that the Hollywood project will accrue $922 million in increased property taxes, but a CRA spokeswoman said much of that money will go toward debts and interest on bonds and therefore will not be calculated as part of the social spending formula.

Since its inception in 1986, the redevelopment project has created $2 million in increased property taxes, but a lawsuit against the redevelopment agency has prevented it from spending the money. Last month, a Superior Court judge ruled tentatively in favor of the CRA, and the agency is negotiating with Los Angeles County to release the money. Redevelopment officials said they expect some money to become available this year.

CRA Hollywood Project Manager H. Cooke Sunoo told the committee Wednesday that the agency’s 1989-90 Hollywood budget sets aside $180,000 for social needs, with the money split between social programs and the agency’s administrative costs.

In addition, he said, a draft agreement between the CRA and Melvin Simon & Associates, which has proposed a $150-million development near Mann’s Chinese Theatre, calls for the developer to contribute $1.5 million for social programs. Sunoo cautioned, however, that the amount could change as talks continue.

Leaders Responded

The survey, conducted by consultants Kevin M. Flynn and Ava I. Bise, targeted 84 community leaders in Hollywood, including representatives from political, religious, health, educational and social groups. Sixty-four people responded, a return rate of 76%.

The survey included four questions as well as a work sheet and a questionnaire about the specific needs of various groups, such as the elderly, veterans and the homeless.

When asked to identify the most serious unmet needs for services in Hollywood, 21% of the respondents pointed to the homeless, 15% to medical care, 12% to mental health, 12% to jobs and job training and 10% to day care, after-school and other youth programs. Six percent identified refugees and immigrants, 6% substance abuse and 5% senior citizens.

Based on more detailed responses from the work sheet, however, the rankings changed. The work sheet required the respondents to set priorities for meeting those needs by determining how widespread they are, how many residents are likely to be affected by them in the future and how seriously they affect families and the community as a whole.

Day Care No. 1

According to the work sheet data, day care became the No. 1 priority for social spending, followed by low-cost medical care, mental health services, jobs and job training, and homeless shelters and services. Flynn and Bise attributed the rankings swap between homeless services and day care needs to the breadth of the day care shortage.

“The high ranking for day care reflects the fact that lack of day care is perceived to be a frequent reason parents with young children cannot obtain a job outside the home and get off welfare,” they wrote.

Homeless services ranked high in a general sense, they wrote, because “the individual suffering of a homeless person touches us all so deeply,” but the ranking dropped when respondents were forced to consider other factors because fewer people “are directly affected by the homeless individual” than by other problems.

A second question asked the respondents to identify which groups in Hollywood “are consistently left out of services.” Twenty-five percent said children and youth, 21% non-English speaking immigrants, refugees and undocumented aliens, 14% senior citizens, 6% the mentally ill, 6% the homeless and 5% the physically handicapped. Four percent identified single-parent families, 3% the poor and 2% each lower-middle-class residents, blacks and other minorities, and substance abusers.

The third question asked for information about existing services for the excluded groups. The final question dealt with population changes over the next few years and how the changes are expected to affect the need for various services.

Twenty-eight percent of the respondents said population changes will require more multilingual and ethnic social services. Nineteen percent predicted a need for more classes in English as a second language, 19% for more social services of all kinds, 11% for more job training programs and 8% for more senior citizen programs.

SURVEY OF SOCIAL NEEDS

A recent study commissioned by the Social Needs Committee asked 84 community leaders for help in identifying and assigning priorities to social needs in Hollywood. The committee got back responses from 64. The top five social needs are:

NEED PERCENT OF TOTAL Homeless 21% Medical Care 15% Mental Health 12% Jobs 12% Day Care, Youth Programs 10%

In addition, the survey asked those polled to identify the groups who are consistently left out of social services. The top five are:

GROUP PERCENT OF TOTAL Children 25% Non-English Speaking 21% Senior Citizens 14% Mentally Ill 6% Homeless 6%

Source: Los Angeles Community Redevelopment Agency