‘Consolidation’ Is Just Concentration of Poverty : Social services: The closing of neighborhood offices that serve the poor will result in more misery and homelessness.

The response of Los Angeles County to the tide of homelessness and dispossession has been perverse--moving essential services farther away from those who need them, effectively concentrating the poorest of the poor in a few areas where they’ll be neither seen nor heard.

The Department of Public Social Services has systematically followed a policy of closing local neighborhood welfare offices and consolidating services into vast, warehouse-style facilities that are often at a great distance from the population that is supposed to be served. In the past few years the number of offices administering General Relief--a program providing a paltry $312 a month to people with no other means of support--has diminished from 30 to 15. This policy is all but guaranteed to increase the population of the poor and homeless.

A case in point is the closure of the only three welfare offices in the South Bay area, which serve more than 100,000 low-income and homeless people, including 70,000 children. Two are closing today and a third later this month. To get essential food, clothing and shelter assistance, these individuals and families have to travel up to 15 miles farther to reach the new “consolidated” office, located in a converted factory in Rancho Dominguez (just south of Compton). People without bus fare and those too handicapped or ill to travel will be cut off, becoming even more vulnerable to poverty, hunger and despair.

The Department of Public Social Services is legally required to provide services to the poor and homeless, but appears to be following its own agenda without regard to that mandate and without any discussions with the poor or their advocates in the social service community. In July, 1989, an interdepartmental memo urged speedy action, arguing that, “Politically, there are no viable options except to push aggressively to get (the) Rancho Dominguez (office) up quickly.” The memo went on to warn that “the more time the plan is allowed to ferment in the media and with Legal Aid and community groups, the more precarious our position will become.”

There is no way that the present policy can in good faith be blamed on budget problems. The leases of the three South Bay offices totaled approximately $800,000 per year, while the lease on the single new office is more than $2 million. Over the past seven years the county’s total general fund revenues have grown by 84%, and the Board of Supervisors has increased the sheriff’s budget by 108%, or $338,985,433, more than the combined increases to health services, mental health, general relief and all other human services of the county. Clearly, the problem is not money but will.

The Board of Supervisors, ultimate boss of the Department of Public Social Services, has paid little attention to the public outcry over the office closures in the South Bay. Supervisor Deane Dana, whose district covers the affected area, has been noticeably silent and has so far declined to meet with community leaders on the issue.

After a protest last month at one Long Beach welfare office, attended by more than 100 concerned citizens and community leaders, numerous phone calls were made to Dana’s office to set up a meeting. Again, silence. More than 2,500 South Bay residents signed petitions opposing the closure of the welfare offices, yet Dana has so far failed to meet with community representatives.

Responding to the Draconian measures taken by the Department of Public Social Services, community leaders and homeless activists formulated some modest proposals to soften the effects of the South Bay consolidation. These include:

--Setting up shuttles to take low-income and homeless people from the South Bay to Rancho Dominguez;

--Lengthening office hours at the consolidated facility;

--Posting “outstationed” workers at local community centers in the South Bay;

--Placing drop boxes in local social service organizations and other convenient locations for recipients and applicants to drop off required documents and reports;

--Adjusting the RTD bus route to pass closer to the Rancho Dominguez office;

When approached with even these limited proposals, two of Dana’s aides declined to discuss most of the items on the list and refused to help implement any of them. Other members of the Board of Supervisors will have a chance to respond during coming budget hearings and to take measures to reduce the damage.

The county must not continue to pursue a policy that effectively cuts off services from those who need them most--the infirm and the very poor who will not make it to a consolidated office far from their community.