Disabled--and Homeless : Turned Away by Shelters Because of Wheelchair, Couple Seek Refuge

Los Angeles is no place to be a homeless person in a wheelchair. Just ask Timothy Zimmerman and his wife, Betty.

Every night this week, the couple said, they have been forced to sleep in secluded spots around the Civic Center--under large bushes, in the shadow of churches and in deserted waiting rooms of seldom-patrolled buildings.

Shelters for the homeless have turned them away because Zimmerman’s frail wife has been confined to a wheelchair by a hip injury she suffered when she was mugged last October.

“We went to at least six places” in the last two days, Zimmerman, a one-time merchant seaman, said Friday. “They’d take one look at the wheelchair and say, ‘Nooooooo. ‘ “

Common Plight

Activists and public officials who deal in issues concerning the homeless say the couple’s plight is very common in Los Angeles. In a city dubbed the nation’s homeless capital, where there are only 9,000 beds for the city’s estimated 35,000 homeless, disabled transients typically are turned away because many shelter operators do not want the responsibility of taking in a disabled person in case something goes wrong.

City officials admit that even shelters that are required to take disabled homeless people--because they receive government funds--have been known to turn them away.

“We have called places and they say, ‘Oh no, we don’t take wheelchairs,’ ” said Lou Dominguez, deputy director of Mayor Tom Bradley’s Office of the Disabled. “But they’re on the city’s list of places that can take disabled.”

The problem facing the couple--Timothy Zimmerman is 52 and his wife is 56--is the latest setback to befall them in recent weeks.

Zimmerman, who lives on a $180-a-month disability check, and his wife, who receives $800 a month from Social Security, decided to leave San Diego for Los Angeles three weeks ago to make a fresh start.

Wheelchair Lost

On June 4, the couple, with $400 between them, bought bus tickets for Long Beach, checking a brand-new, $800 wheelchair through baggage handling in San Diego for the trip north. But when they arrived, the wheelchair was nowhere to be found.

Officials at Greyhound Lines Inc., prompted by an increasingly agitated Zimmerman, searched high and low for the wheelchair but to no avail.

Red-faced Greyhound officials promised to reimburse Zimmerman for a $65, second-hand wheelchair he was forced to purchase. And if the lost one is not found by July 7, Greyhound officials said they will give the couple an additional $250.

Meanwhile, the couple used up their meager savings on motel rooms and hamburgers during the search for the lost wheelchair.

By last Monday, the money was gone and the Zimmermans said they were forced to look for shelter on Skid Row.

At each place they went, they said they were turned away because of Betty Zimmerman’s wheelchair.

Turned Away

In one instance Thursday, a downtown-area church told the couple that a room was available at the Pacific Grant Hotel on South Spring Street. But when the couple arrived, they were turned away.

Contacted later, a hotel employee, who declined to be identified, said there were no vacancies.

The Zimmermans said they also were turned down for shelter at the Weingart Center on San Pedro Street, which by law cannot reject disabled people since it receives government support.

Weingart officials late Friday rejected any notion of discrimination against disabled people, pointing out that one wheelchair-bound transient now lives there. “Frequently we turn away people when there are no beds,” staffer Rhonda Thomas said.

Because of the lack of shelter beds in Los Angeles, homelessness activists such as lawyer Gary Blasi of the Legal Aid Foundation of Los Angeles said the no-vacancy explanation is a common excuse to get rid of transients.

And there are virtually no resources to monitor alleged incidents of discrimination, he said.

“It’s outrageous,” Blasi said.

In the meantime, when last seen, the Zimmermans were headed for some “green space and some quiet.”

On Monday, Timothy Zimmerman promised to continue fighting for his wife’s lost wheelchair and a place to get back on their feet.

“They talk about L.A.’s mean streets,” he said, “but I didn’t think they’re this mean.”