Q&A; : Seeing the Human Side of the Homeless

Vivian Rothstein, 46, executive director of the Ocean Park Community Center, Santa Monica.

Claim to fame: Presides over an eight-project social service network, a key component of Santa Monica’s ambitious array of programs for helping those in need--the homeless, battered women, the mentally ill and youth in crisis. Long active in community affairs, Rothstein has played a prominent role in the city’s Task Force on Homelessness.

Background: A graduate of UC Berkeley and veteran of the ‘60s civil rights movement, Rothstein registered voters in the South, organized residents of low-income communities and was active in opposing the Vietnam War. A single mother with two teen-agers, Rothstein lives in Santa Monica.

Interviewer: Times staff writer Nancy Hill-Holtzman.

Q: Do a lot of people have a basic misunderstanding about homelessness?

A: Yes. One of the myths is that homeless people are so different from the rest of us. When you work with homeless people you realize it’s as diverse a group as any group of human beings. Really, homelessness is just a new word for poverty. It’s the new American poverty. It arises from a number of different sources and policy changes. Of course, it all boils down to the lack of affordable housing.

Q: Well, let me mention the politically incorrect “B-word” that we don’t use--bum. Is there some percentage of homeless people in Santa Monica that one could classify as bums?

A: I don’t like the term because it’s like saying that someone is sort of subhuman. In every social class there are people who are not very highly motivated, who are very self-centered and who really don’t care about participating in society. Drugs, so readily available right now, can aggravate that tendency. After prolonged use, people become so alienated and distanced from themselves and other people that they end up living a lifestyle that is not connected to society and not productive.

Q: How many of the homeless fall into that last category?

A: I really have no idea. We run programs that are geared toward helping people become the most they can be. Our programs attract people who are trying to build their own self-esteem. So just about everybody that we work with is interested in taking some small step to get their life under control. People who have really given up on themselves don’t come in to services.

Q: So, what do we do about them?

A: We have an outreach team that goes out into the parks and public areas and tries to make connections with people who are very disabled because of mental illness or substance abuse or both. We try to develop a relationship and bring them into the social service network. There are other people who just don’t want anything to do with anybody--they just want to be out there and live off the community. They are certainly not anywhere near the majority. Q: Is it those people who are upsetting the residents?

A: Yeah, I think it’s a lot of people who are coming here for very opportunistic reasons. Santa Monica has developed a reputation as the place you can pretty much do what you want. You don’t have to work with an agency. There are no judgments made about your behavior.

Q: Do you think it would be good for Santa Monica if some of the homeless people here went elsewhere?

A: I think it would be good if the community was clear and consistent about what it expected of homeless people. Then the homeless people would make their own decisions, and I think a number of them would leave.

Q: Has the city contributed to antisocial behavior out of well-meaning, but misguided, compassion? By not having expectations of the homeless?

A: Yes. I think leniency across the board isn’t necessarily what works for any of us. Structure is extremely important and so are expectations. If you have no expectations of people, particularly when they have been through a traumatic experience, it’s very hard for them to build expectations for themselves again.

Q: It sounds as if your programs are rigorous.

A: We run programs that are very clearly structured. We have clear rules and they’re consistently applied. We let people know what they are and then they make a choice of whether to participate. We don’t allow people to abuse other people or to use drugs and alcohol when they’re in our sheltering program. I think in the same way a community can set its own limits. This community is very interested in helping people who really want to work on changing their circumstances. But for people who just want to live permanently in the parks and don’t want to work with any agency, this is not the place to be.

Q: Is that why you want to tie the daily feeding program at City Hall to other services?

A: I don’t support big, anonymous programs where there’s no notion of responsibility or it’s very passive on the part of the client. We try to encourage people to take the next step toward stabilizing their lives. People who come to the City Hall feeding program don’t ever talk to anybody, don’t make a personal contact. No one knows their name. Nobody knows what their problems are. No one knows what their hopes are.

Q: How has the homeless situation in Santa Monica changed over the last few years?

A: There’s a lot more drugs out in the community, and the parks have become much more dangerous. I’m concerned about that from a community point of view and from the point of view of homeless people. I don’t think the conditions out there are acceptable for anybody. You can walk through the park and see drug sales being made.

Q: How has this affected service providers?

A: It has dramatically changed the service environment because we work with people to get them on disability or other benefits--and then they can go out and spend their money on drugs. Then their behavior is so erratic we can’t work with them. Drug sales and drug use in public places and public drunkenness are really serious. Those are part of a community setting its boundaries. We don’t allow it in our program. Why should we allow it in our parks?

Q: Do you agree with the police chief that the large numbers of unsheltered people in the park can serve as a camouflage for drug dealers or other criminals?

A: I think it can, but I don’t believe in the most radical solution (such as arresting people for sleeping in the parks). I do not agree with running people out of town.

Q: If the parks were closed down at night to everyone, would that be the equivalent of running people out of town?

A: Oh, yeah. Either people who now sleep in the parks would move to residential areas, which is much worse for residents, or they would have to get out of town. Where else could they go? They could either be arrested or leave town. So that’s equivalent to running people out of town.

Q: What should be done, if anything, about the inordinate number of homeless people--in relation to the city’s size--in Santa Monica?

A: If we really enforce the drug laws and we really enforce public drunkenness and aggressive behavior laws, then the numbers of homeless people who felt comfortable staying here would drop.

Q: You’re convinced that with a law against encampments and a crackdown in drug dealing, the parks would improve?

A: There would still be homeless people in the park, but I don’t think people sleeping between midnight and 5 a.m. impinges on any resident’s freedom or access to the park.

Q: But what if the same people are in the parks at 7 the night before, asleep from midnight to 5 and then remain in the park throughout the day?

A: It’s a problem when people take over part of the park and make it theirs so nobody else can use it. But a lot of people use the parks for long periods of time, and I think people should be able to coexist so long as there are consistent behavior expectations.

Q: Will the homeless population respond to laws geared toward monitoring their behavior?

A: I think so. Homeless people are the first victims of the crimes that go on in the park--and they’re terrified, particularly the women. A number of our clients have been killed over the last three or four years.

Q: Would you take your kids to the park if they were playground-age now?

A: I would. I don’t think the conditions are great now, but my experience is that the city is not that dangerous.

It is overwhelmingly depressing to go to a restaurant and see somebody lying in front who is so disabled. That bothers me more than feeling physically unsafe. I don’t feel physically unsafe, but I feel morally under assault all the time and that makes me uncomfortable.

Q: Have you understood from listening to the public that many people in the city do feel physically unsafe?

A: Yes, and I think many people feel morally, totally in turmoil.

Q: What percentage of the homeless population is mentally disabled?

A: I’d say 30% of the people we see are mentally disabled, some not as severe as others.

Q: What percentage is substance abusers?

A: Well, there’s an overlap. I’d say 30% to 40% of the people have abused substances. But you know I remember a woman at Daybreak (a women’s shelter) who said to me, “God, I’m off drugs and alcohol and now I gotta get off the street, it’s driving me crazy.” Drugs and alcohol are used as a way to tolerate this horrible situation. This woman was getting clean so she could go into a shelter, but being sober and still on the street was terrifying.

Q: Would you favor checking warrants of people who come into programs? A: No. Once social services gets associated with the law enforcement system, we have lost our ability to build trust with people. And I don’t think it’s legal.

Q: Is using public places as bathrooms a hostile gesture by the homeless, a sort of thumbing their nose at the society that has failed them?

A: I think that’s mostly mentally ill people. What other person would defecate in public view of traffic and everything? People get more depressed than angry. They’ve given up on themselves. They go to the toilet everywhere because they’ve just lost their sense of self-respect.

Q: Tell me what the Ocean Park Community Center is and what it does.

A: We call it a network of emergency shelters and services. It’s an agency that runs a number of programs for special populations that are in crisis. That includes battered women and their children, homeless runaway youths, homeless mentally ill women and homeless adults and families. The community centers have been in existence for over 25 years. The overall budget of the agency is $2.3 million, and we get a little over $500,000 from the city.

Q: How does the social service network in Santa Monica compare to other cities?

A: Santa Monica’s got one of the best social service/community service programs in the whole country. It was consciously built. When the liberals took over the City Council, one thing on their agenda was social services. The city hasn’t backed down from its commitment.

Q: Tell me what a day is like for a homeless person who is not in a shelter and wakes up in the park.

A: They have to get to our drop-in center really early to get a number if they want to see a homeless advocate. There’s a line here by 6 o’clock in the morning.

Q: What if somebody just wants breakfast?

A: They have to get a number. The food is packaged and it’s not great. That’s one fallacy about Santa Monica being a magnet. The best that you get is a cot in a church basement and a bag of groceries. It’s not like you’re going to come all across the county to get this minimal service. This is not the Hilton.

Q: Where else is breakfast served?

A: Nowhere else for those not enrolled in programs. The Salvation Army has been running a program at Memorial Park for people in the shelter.

Q: What if a homeless person wants to shower?

A: They can sign up here at the drop-in center. St. Joseph’s in Venice has showers. The Venice Family Clinic I think has one or two showers. There are some showers at Memorial Park. It’s hard taking a shower.

Q: So, a homeless person needs an appointment to take a shower?

A: It’s full-time work to stay alive on the streets. You get up in the morning, figure out the place to eat, figure out a place to go to the toilet. You find out whether your name has been moved up on a waiting list for a shelter or detox program, maybe come and get your mail, maybe go to (the County Department of Public Social Services office) to see if you have to do job searches to stay on general relief. It’s very hard to have the time to look for a job and get permanent housing.

Q: Is lunch available at the Ocean Park Community Center?

A: Part of what we give out in the morning includes sandwiches, but usually people eat it right away because they haven’t eaten since the day before.

Q: There are a few dozen detox beds in the whole county. So, what happens to somebody who’s on drugs and wants to get off?

A: They go on a waiting list. It may be six months before they get a detox bed. In the meantime, they’re on the streets. By then they may have given up or be so high they’ve forgotten they wanted to get clean.

Q: There is an acute shortage of beds for the mentally ill, too, right?

A: There are very few. The other big crisis is the county mental health services. I was in a meeting with Supervisor Ed Edelman and he is committed to helping build Santa Monica West into a functioning clinic again. That would make a huge difference in Santa Monica.

Q: Do you have success stories to report?

A: Our adopted family program is uniquely successful right now. It’s a partnership between us and homeless families and religious congregations. It’s meant a lot to the congregations because they have been able to have a direct impact on a homeless family. And homeless families have found a sense of community, which is what people really need.

Our shelter for mentally ill women also has a 70% success rate of getting women, some of whom have been on the streets for years, into permanent housing.

Q: You’re a member of the city’s Task Force on Homelessness, which is preparing a comprehensive strategy for coping with the problem. Can you identify anything you’ve learned from listening to task force members and others?

A: I learned that the conditions in the city have become really intolerable for the residents. I take that real seriously because we can’t survive if the residents in this community are unhappy. It’s a threat to the programs and mostly to the health of the city. This has to be a healthy city where people feel the opportunity to be heard. If any one group feels totally unrepresented that’s a problem.

One important thing is that all of (the city’s homeless programs) were developed after very extensive community input. They did not arrive full-blown from the City Council or anyone else. I think the community process is at the core of the reason why this community has taken a leadership role on homeless services.

Q: How so?

A: You can’t move ahead in any area unless the community is behind you. We are not trying to ram programs down the community’s throat. Controversy and adversarial relationships don’t serve anybody, least of all homeless people. If you really care about the homeless population you have to strive to build a consensus in peacefulness.

Q: At this point in Santa Monica, the atmosphere is as acrimonious as the recent peace talks in Madrid.

A: We’re around the table. On the homeless task force, we’ve done really well. These are people who had been arguing with each other for three years and there’s an enormous amount of mutual respect and mutual growth that has gone on. If only people would listen to us.

Q: The task force’s report goes to the City Council in a month. Has your work been hampered by the various provocative statements and politicking on the issue by various officials and community groups lately?

A: The community has been totally split on this. The problem is there’s all these other actors who are involved and the task force is not being allowed to provide leadership. There’s a lot of competition for leadership. I think we can be very valuable to the city and the council if we’re allowed to be.

Q: Is there a middle ground to be found on this most divisive issue?

A: This community really cares about public safety, but it really cares about people too. It’s not an extremist community on any side. So, I think people wouldn’t buy an extremist answer on either side.

Q: Do you think that the majority of the community is going to feel comfortable with the thrust of the task force report?

A: I think it can’t be ignored--but I could be wrong.