Neighbors Call San Fernando Welfare Office Threat to Safety

Each morning the residents of a middle-class San Fernando neighborhood awake to a drama of poverty and homelessness clearly visible from their living-room windows.

In increasing numbers during the past year, indigent men and women, sometimes mentally ill, who come to pick up welfare checks and food stamps at a county Department of Public Social Services office on Maclay Avenue have begun to wander through the streets of the otherwise quiet community, residents and city officials said.

Complaints by about 40 residents at a contentious San Fernando City Council meeting late Monday moved the council to vote to attempt to close the county-run facility as a threat to public health and safety if conditions do not improve in the next two weeks.

Some of those waiting to enter the office ask residents for food or sleep on their manicured lawns, and others sell or solicit drugs, the neighbors said. And in recent weeks, prostitutes have appeared in the neighborhood for the first time, apparently to solicit those in line, the residents said.

The residents blame the problem on mismanagement by Public Social Services. Some accused the department of shifting additional welfare recipients to the San Fernando office. A department spokeswoman denied that the county had directed more recipients to the office.

‘Didn’t Care’

“Whoever did this . . . didn’t care who it would affect, what would happen,” Ken Sawaki, a resident of Brand Boulevard, told the council. “Every time I let my boy out the door, I wonder if he’ll come back.”

Bob Chapman’s wood-frame home on 8th Street faces the welfare office. He showed the council photographs of a small encampment next to the building where homeless men sleep overnight, and a blue plastic bucket of trash he said he recovered from his front lawn, including condoms and wine and beer bottles.

Responding to the criticism, Glee Langenbacher, manager of the office, told the council that 60% of the recipients were homeless. She said staff members were doing their best to keep them from urinating in public or throwing trash on the streets.

“I’ve lived here all of my life too,” she said. “I was born and raised here, one mile from the office.”

Ike August, district director for the department, told the council that overcrowding at the office was partly the result of a Los Angeles Fire Department order in April limiting occupancy to 35 people. The order has forced most of the more than 150 welfare recipients who come there each day to wait outside, he said.

Long Waits

About 50 people stood or sat on the sidewalk outside the office Tuesday. Mary Jennings of North Hollywood, who had come to pick up her monthly $312 check, said long waits are common.

“This right here is really heavy,” Jennings said as she stood over a man who lay unconscious on the pavement. Jennings said she had waited most of the morning without getting into the office. “They need a bigger building,” she said. “They don’t even have chairs or benches.”

San Fernando Police Chief Dominick J. Rivetti said the number of complaints received from residents has increased dramatically in the past three or four months. “We’ve devoted more manpower to that area and committed more resources than we normally do to the rest of the city,” he said.

The county office has been on Maclay Avenue since 1959. Residents said it is only in the past year that people have begun to wander from the office into the surrounding neighborhood.

Suzanne Llamas, 33, said her 10-year-old daughter has been approached by drug dealers who normally cater to the county office’s clients. Llamas presented a petition to the council with 175 signatures demanding that the council take action on the office. Still, Llamas said she did not blame the welfare recipients for the situation.

“Their basic human rights are being abused and neglected,” she said. “That leads to the antisocial behavior we and our kids are being exposed to.”

Nancy Mayer, director of a YWCA center across the street from the office, agreed. “All of us share a compassion for these individuals,” she said. “We want these services to continue. But we want it in a way that does not jeopardize our neighborhood.”

In response to the protests, the council members said they would consider closing the office. “We have the authority as a city, if we have a health and safety problem, to shut down the facility,” said Councilman James B. Hansen, to loud applause.

The council unanimously approved a resolution proposed by Councilman Doude Wysbeek to close the facility if the county did not act in “good faith” to improve conditions in two weeks.

It remained unclear Tuesday, however, whether the city has the authority to close the county-run facility. City Administrator Donald E. Penman said the city attorney would research the question and report to the council.

Colleen Moske, a spokeswoman for the social welfare department, also said it was unclear whether the city had the authority to close the office. “We still have to service the community,” she said. “We would have to do some analysis of where we could provide the service.”