Hundreds Forced to Wait in Parking Lot of Packed Welfare Office

For the third straight day, hundreds of people were forced to wait for hours Wednesday in the parking lot of the county’s Southwest District welfare office after Fire Department officials cited the office for allowing too many people into its waiting room.

More than 200 people stood in lines as security guards and workers with bullhorns attempted to keep order. Nevertheless, groups of anxious people pressing up against the Athens office’s front door created what one social services worker called “chaos just about as bad as it gets.”

Vickie Stevenson, a 29-year-old homeless woman who had been in line every day this week, said she spent Tuesday night under a bush a few blocks from the office.

“There were people here (Wednesday) before daylight,” she said. “It looks like I’ll be back tomorrow.”

Returning for a second day at the facility on Imperial Highway near Normandie Avenue was Rebecca, 29, who asked that her last name not be used. A mother of two from Inglewood, she went to the office to find out why her $663-a-month assistance had been cut off.

“I couldn’t bend my legs at the end of the day yesterday. . . . It’s really demeaning to go through this, to have to wait in the parking lot, but I have to do it for my family,” she said.

Other angry and tired people said they had been at the facility every day since Monday when the county Fire Department conducted its inspection of the county Department of Public Social Services office and ordered that no more than 133 people be allowed inside at a time.

“They are treating people like cattle,” grumbled Chris Cole of Hawthorne, who made it into the facility Wednesday afternoon after about six hours of waiting. “There is no organization. These people live stressful lives already, and this makes it a lot worse.”

The Southwest District office, which Fire Department officials have warned about overcrowding in the past, is one of the county’s largest and busiest welfare facilities, with a caseload of 28,000 from the South Bay and Westside, said Colleen Moskal, a spokeswoman for the social services department. It combines in one waiting room those seeking county General Relief funds, food stamps and medical assistance with those seeking Aid for Families With Dependent Children.

Like all of the county’s welfare offices, it is busiest early in the month, she said, partly because welfare checks are issued then.

Rising numbers of clients have created a strain on the waiting rooms of several of the county’s 31 welfare offices during the beginning-of-the-month rush, Moskal said. The county’s overall caseload grew by 15% last year, she said, and the number of clients grew 0.5% between April and May of this year, from 910,747 to 915,450.

Skid Row Office Cited

The Fire Department cited the department’s Civic Center office on Skid Row earlier this year, and county officials say the Rancho Park office in West Los Angeles suffered severe overcrowding until waiting rooms were expanded last month.

San Fernando has threatened to close the Maclay Avenue facility there, although its authority to do so is unclear. In response to neighborhood complaints that the homeless are loitering at that facility, Supervisor Mike Antonovich has asked the county social services department to step up its search for a new facility in the San Fernando Valley.

An advocate for the poor said the conditions at the Southwest District office illustrate the county’s attitude toward the poor.

“It’s symptomatic of a much larger question,” said Gary Blasi, director of the Homeless Project at the Legal Aid Foundation of Los Angeles. “The county Board of Supervisors has essentially adopted a policy where they don’t care about people applying for public assistance. If you compare these waits with waits for real estate developers at the Hall of Records, you see the priorities of the Board of Supervisors.”

The Legal Aid Foundation and Los Angeles have teamed up in a lawsuit against the county challenging the county’s administration of the General Relief program on behalf of the homeless mentally ill.

Called a Top Priority

John Zaccone, director of administrative services for the department, said his office considers the crowding problem a top priority and is moving aggressively to expand facilities to remedy it.

But Lisa Foster, a staff attorney with Legal Aid, said bigger waiting rooms will not solve the problem. She called it “unconscionable” that the poor and homeless should have to spend all day waiting outside the building.

“It often takes all day for the county to deal with someone. People have appointments at 9 or 10 in the morning and they don’t see their worker until 2 or 3 in the afternoon. They have to figure out a way to process these people faster. There is no reason it should take all day.”

Renovation Planned

Zaccone said the county plans to renovate the Southwest facility to create another waiting room elsewhere in the building. The project should be completed by early next year, he said.

The county also is consolidating four cramped welfare offices in the Long Beach and Harbor areas with a more spacious facility near Compton, Zaccone said. The new, 133,000-square-foot regional headquarters will have about 20% more space than the old offices combined.

In the San Fernando Valley, county officials are seeking a new building to replace the cramped Maclay Avenue facility, which has a waiting room that holds 35 people.

“We are attempting to alleviate the problem,” Moskal said. “The problem is attributable to a greater caseload. We have something that is not necessarily in our control.”