Radio Ads on Homeless Won’t Air
Plans for a radio commercial urging the public to call county supervisors to demand more help for the homeless were dropped Thursday after Supervisor Ed Edelman said he will introduce proposals to deal with the problem of homelessness.
The Countywide Coalition for the Homeless, which came up with the idea for the commercials, claimed credit for spurring Edelman into action--a claim disputed by the supervisor.
Edelman said that before he heard about the commercial, he planned to introduce on Tuesday a motion to end a costly legal fight with the city and homeless advocates over homelessness. Edelman said he also plans to propose the creation of a 23-member Los Angeles Coordinating Council on Homelessness.
Tuesday is the first meeting for newly elected Supervisor Gloria Molina, who along with Edelman and Kenneth Hahn will make up a new liberal board majority.
Edelman said that when he heard about the homeless group’s plans to air a commercial targeting the liberal majority, “I told them that they should direct it at (conservative Supervisors) Mike Antonovich and Deane Dana, not your friends.”
John Suggs, executive director of the coalition, said the group targeted the liberals to make sure that the homeless problem would be a top priority of the new board.
“We saw it as sort of friendly persuasion,” Suggs said of the commercials. He said the group raised $1,000 in private contributions to air the commercials 14 times on radio station KACE-FM.
The commercial, which was to begin airing today, opened with a woman asking, “Anything in the paper, honey?”
“Yeah,” the man replies, “It says here the county’s been spending millions of our tax dollars . . . to get around the law that says it’s got to help the homeless . . . They’ve paid lawyers up to $300 an hour . . . and they pay the homeless people . . . just $312 a month to live on.”
“That’s outrageous,” the woman responds.
“But things might be changing,” the man says. “Gloria Molina just got elected to the county Board of Supervisors. Now there’s a majority on the board--Molina, Hahn and Edelman--who say they really do want to help the homeless.”
A narrator then urges, “If you want the new county board to call off the lawyers and use your taxes to help the homeless, call Supervisors Molina, Hahn and Edelman.”
Edelman’s motion states: “Los Angeles holds the dubious distinction of being known as the homeless capital of the world. Studies have shown that there are as many as 183,000 homeless in the Los Angeles area, many of them children.”
Edelman said the county has spent more than $2.5 million fighting the lawsuits brought by the city and homeless advocates seeking to increase general relief payments and funding for programs for the homeless.
