Debate Over Rights of Trailer Occupants : Family Threatened With Eviction

When Susan Britt and her children were accepted by the new homeless trailer program in West Los Angeles, she thought they were getting a roof over their heads for six months.

Britt, her 17-year-old son and 10-year-old daughter moved in to the comfy, furnished two-bedroom trailer in mid-April.

Within six weeks, however, Britt and the kids were on their way out. The Salvation Army, which runs the transitional housing program in partnership with Los Angeles and the federal government, had threatened to “evict” her. Ultimately, she was charged with 22 infractions, many of which she disputes. Britt, in turn, alleged harassment from officials who hovered over her trailer, constantly accusing her of breaking rules, and, in general, made her life miserable. “I was going to be out there for real on the streets,” Britt said.

It was an unexpected turnabout. The college-educated secretary had been handpicked to be one of the first families in the Westside trailer enclave, which opened in February as part of a multi-agency citywide program championed by Mayor Tom Bradley to “bridge the gap between homelessness and mainstream society.”

She had also won an award from Los Angeles County Supervisor Deane Dana for the progress she had made in her three months in a temporary shelter program in Venice. Before that, life had been a stream of cheap motels, and when there was no money or vouchers, the car was home.

The West Los Angeles trailers, unlike some of the city’s other 61 trailers placed within housing projects, is in a decidedly upscale environ. The 15 trailers sit in the shadow of Westwood skyscrapers on a strip of federal land on Sepulveda Boulevard. Northbound drivers on the San Diego Freeway can spot the roofs of the trailers beyond the shrubbery at the Wilshire Boulevard off-ramp.

The much-vaunted experimental program, a sort of halfway house for homeless families, seeks to offer stable housing and support for those with the potential, persistence and motivation to make a comeback. Six months is the maximum stay.

Freed from the daily worry of where the kids are going to sleep that night, a parent can refocus energies on finding a job, obtaining training or counseling and, perhaps most important, squirreling away enough money for the first and last month’s rent of permanent housing.

A list of rules, seemingly in no particular order, given to each resident forbids everything from drug use to knocking on the manager’s door between 10 a.m. and 4 p.m. Visitors must sign in for the three hours per weekday they are permitted on the grounds. (Weekend visiting hours are longer.) Guests are then subject to an impromptu background check by being asked who they are and what their business is, Britt said.

Britt’s worst infraction was that she was behind on her savings plan of setting aside $300 a month. Another complaint--that she didn’t sign in her visitors--she blames on the unavailability of the sign-in sheet, which was locked up in the manager’s trailer.

Jon Henderson, the Salvation Army executive in charge of the trailer program, denies that the on-site manager behaved inappropriately toward Britt. The “fairly strict” rules are essential for security and to ensure the program’s success, he said.

Salvation Army’s Philosophy

Gary Squier, director of the Los Angeles Housing Authority, said the Salvation Army’s philosophy has succeeded in homeless shelters and alcohol abuse programs. “Frankly, I think the most rigid (programs) have a greater success rate in placements,” Squier said.

For homeless people, Henderson said, “there is a frame of mind they need to reacquire--a life style they have to reacquire. I think that would be better accomplished living within the rules of the program, just like they will have to do in society.”

Instead, Britt is “creating her own war,” said the on-site manager, Terri Murphy. Murphy described Britt as angry, confrontational and disruptive to the other families. “She hates people telling her what to do. She feels like she’s an adult and can have visitors over whenever she wants.”

The question of whether Britt was behaving antagonistically and flouting the rules or whether the manager had been arbitrary and overly intrusive, or some combination of the two, is not easily answered.

‘Program-Client’ Relationship

The Salvation Army contends that, because it has the same “program-client” relationship with trailer occupants as it has with overnight shelter users, it is entitled to unilaterally remove Britt, or any trailer occupant, if the residents break a rule they have agreed to follow. That position is shared by other agencies that run the decentralized trailer parks.

The trailer resident was expected to go gently into that good night without benefit of legal proceedings or a hearing on the fairness of the eviction, said a Los Angeles housing official, adding that 34 occupants citywide have been “negatively terminated” from the program.

Britt was not about to comply. She marshaled the same moxie that pulled her through cancer, diagnosed by her doctor as terminal in 1985. The illness triggered her family’s declining circumstances, she said. Now she is in remission.

She also refused to believe that being homeless meant she had forfeited her constitutional right to due process. “I told them I had worked hard to get this far. ‘Don’t do things to put me out on the curb,’ ” Britt, 39, said.

Legal Aid Foundation attorneys, who, since the inception of the program, have said trailer occupants are entitled to full tenants’ rights, including an unlawful detainer hearing in court before being evicted.

‘It’s Like Second Grade’

Although generally enthusiastic about the trailer program, Legal Aid attorney Roderick Field said he found some on-site managers “pretty arbitrary and paternalistic. . . . It’s like second grade. I’ve heard of jails that are a little looser.”

Some service organizations, said Legal Aid attorney Mary Lou Villar, have set up the trailer programs as a “dictatorship” that capitalizes on homeless people’s fears, threatening them with being put back out on the streets at the slightest provocation. “They don’t lose all their human rights they have as human beings to dignity,” she claims.

Henderson said the West Los Angeles program provides a plethora of amenities, including “a very nice trailer in a very nice part of town,” counseling, child care, camp and trips to Disneyland for the children. “If you were homeless and in need of a place to live that badly, I don’t think we ask anything unreasonable.”

The program does not take advantage of the desperate straits of the homeless, who will likely agree to almost anything in exchange for six months of shelter, Henderson said.

Seeks a Middle Ground

Susan Flores, director of human resources for Los Angeles’ Community Development Department, said she seeks a middle ground for a program that has been, in large part, a success; 116 families have gone on to permanent housing.

She attributes the problems to the program’s newness. For example, some providers used the same regulations they used in the much more communal atmosphere of temporary shelters, which require closer monitoring than might be needed in single-family dwellings, Flores said.

Flores said her department is studying the rules at all the trailer sites and intends to standardize guidelines within a month. “The questions are, first, are the rules appropriate? and, if they are appropriate, what happens if you break the rules?” she said. “We don’t want people equating using drugs with knocking on the manager’s door at the wrong time.”

Ideally, the program can be rigorous, without being overbearing, with the responsibility for success--or failure--resting with the individual, Flores said. Those who enter the trailer program must understand that their living quarters are a fringe benefit available only if they uphold their part of the contract.

The Last Word

Legislation may provide the last word as to whether the homeless have tenant rights if they live in trailers. Assistant City Atty. Julie Downey said the trailer parks are hybrids that don’t fit into a clearly defined legal category. Somewhere between unceremonious ouster and interminable eviction hearings, there is a middle ground, she said.

(Downey said she--and others--had hoped to tiptoe around the legal quandary while the trailer program was in its infancy.)

Meanwhile, Downey and Flores said that for now, trailer occupants will be afforded full tenant rights. The decision coincided with Britt’s eviction flap, a situation that both women insist is not indicative of the program at large.

However, Henderson said the Salvation Army has not conceded its legal position, nor will it accede to rules with which it does not agree. “The Salvation Army is going to want to have some say in how they run a program. It’s their name and reputation,” he said.

‘Overlook the Matter’

As for Britt, Henderson said they have decided “to overlook the matter and let her stay until the original length of her term.”

Murphy said she tries to steer clear of Britt, who continues to break the rules by having overnight guests and refusing to register her visitors. “She’s still here. She should be grateful,” Murphy said.

Thus when Mayor Bradley honored those who had contributed time, money and energy to his pet project in a ceremony at the West Los Angeles trailer park Thursday, Britt still had a home.