Mission Is Moving Deeper Into Skid Row - Homeless: The City Council approves a controversial proposal to pay the charity $6.5 million to relocate.

The Los Angeles City Council on Friday approved a controversial proposal to move the Union Rescue Mission five blocks away from its historic site on Main Street, to the meanest stretch of Skid Row.

Approval came in the form of an endorsement of a Community Redevelopment Agency plan to pay $6.5 million to the mission for “relocation” expenses and several million dollars more if the CRA exercises an option to buy the mission’s facility on South Main Street next to St. Vibiana’s Cathedral.

Relocation of the 98-year-old nondenominational mission, the oldest and largest in Los Angeles, foreshadows significant changes for both the Main Street area where it now stands and for the small section of Skid Row where it is slated to move.

As part of its approval, the council ordered the mission, which houses 800 men each night--with 300 in beds and 500 on chairs in its chapel--to double the number of beds at the new site at 547 S. San Pedro St. The new facility will probably open in three or four years, mission officials said.

Critics--including businessmen in the Central City East area of Skid Row where the mission will move and several advocates for the homeless--said the move further concentrates the homeless and homeless services into an increasingly smaller downtown area. And that, one critic said, amounts to “government NIMBY-ism,”--a buzzword for “not-in-my-back-yard” prejudice.

CRA Administrator John Tuite said the move furthers a 14-year-old agency plan “for the revitalization of Main Street through the elimination of substandard structures, relocation of inappropriate uses and upgrading of the physical environment.”

The Ronald Reagan State Office Building is under construction a block from the mission’s current location, Tuite noted, adding that the landmark San Fernando office building at 4th and Main streets had been rehabilitated and several X-rated theaters and bars removed.

But Toni Reinis, director of the Los Angeles-based California Homeless Coalition, said the relocation forces more homeless “into an over-concentrated area that is plagued with drugs and crime.”

More than six service programs are within two blocks of the mission’s new site, said Charles Woo, chairman of the Central City East Assn., which represents about 50 Skid Row businesses. He said the council vote did “not look carefully at alternatives to meet the real needs of the homeless, but rather chooses the easy way out, for cosmetic purposes.”

Woo and others accused the CRA of plotting the mission’s move. To persuade state officials to place their new office building at 3rd and Main streets, CRA promised to clear the homeless off the street, they charged.

But Tuite denied that the agency had ever agreed to such a condition. In response to a question from Councilman Mike Woo, he said the relocation “was on the budget before any defined state office building agreement had been reached.”

Still, some council members questioned the CRA’s motives. “The moneyed interests in the downtown area have been trying to get rid of the Union Rescue Mission for a long time,” said Ernani Bernardi during a debate that stretched more than two hours.

Zev Yaroslavsky said the CRA had relocated 27 nonprofit groups since 1970. “No nonprofit has ever received this kind of treatment,” he said. “A rest home in Pico Union got $10,000 and the Pico Union Neighborhood Council got $7,500 for relocation. The Union Rescue Mission will be receiving the equivalent of the full value of their property plus the relocation payment equal to more than three times the value of that property.”

He called the approval a “horrible mistake. The council will regret it.”

CRA officials said the $6.5-million amount was based on the estimated cost of duplicating the mission’s 65,000-square-foot facility at a new site.

But Councilman Richard Alatorre said “the real issue is consistency, whether the relocation is consistent with the redevelopment plan.” The mission’s relocation has been part of the CRA’s budget since 1983.

Other council members, including Joan Milke Flores and Joel Wachs, said they endorsed the move because the mission does good work. “The CRA hasn’t sheltered the homeless,” Wachs said, “the Central City East merchants haven’t sheltered them, and the City Council hasn’t done a good job. The mission is out there, the only one that’s really cared about their fellow man.”

But Gloria Molina, who also criticized the relocation plan as “not well thought out,” said the mission’s efforts were not an issue.

“If we were sincere we would allow the mission to continue its work and give them some city land somewhere else to double the number of beds or triple,” she said. “That would be a sincere action. The action before us is an insincere one . . . to remove homeless people from a certain street and move them to another street.”

George Caywood, Union Rescue Mission’s executive director, said the charity wanted “to seize the opportunity to improve and increase services to the homeless,” with a new facility about double the size of its present one. The mission is embarked on a campaign to raise an additional $8 million to supplement the relocation funds and has already raised about $3 million, he said.

But Councilman Woo, noting the CRA agreement carried no written assurance that the mission would increase its services to the homeless, wrote an amendment saying the facility must provide “at least double the number of beds.” If the mission fails to carry that out, the amendment says the mission has to either return the $6.5 million to the CRA or give up the new property.

After the council vote, an elated Caywood said he wasn’t worried about finding the extra funds too meet the council’s demand. “I believe we can raise it,” he said. “I’m really happy for the poor people.”