Homeless Residents Leave Drug Camp Across From City Hall

Providers of services to the homeless Monday descended upon an encampment across from City Hall, promising alternative housing and urging residents to vacate their impromptu town in the heart of downtown Los Angeles.

By midmorning, when a three-person team from the Los Angeles Homeless Service Authorities arrived at the camp, most residents had fled, scared off by television crews and the buzz caused by a Times story detailing drug use in the small camp perched on an abandoned lot owned by the county and the state.

Of the three residents who remained, two accepted offers of help from Carol Trudeau, an emergency response team coordinator for the homeless agency. David, 36, who suffers a chronic liver ailment, reluctantly agreed to take the offer of a hotel room for the night and leave the camp. It was not clear what, if any, long-term plans agency officials had in mind.

“I’m confident that whatever can be done . . . will be done,” said Henry Knawls, the agency’s interim executive director.

Advocates for the poor say the compelling example of homeless people living and shooting up drugs across the street from City Hall illustrated an intractable urban problem that has been compounded by shortages of rehabilitation and housing services for the destitute.

“Drug addiction is a major problem and yet there are very few programs,” said Alice Callaghan, director of Las Familias del Pueblo. “If you don’t have private insurance, there’s very little available.”

When people come to Callaghan, saying that they are ready to kick their habit and to enter rehabilitation programs, she said she often cannot provide timely help. It can take three to eight months to get into a program, she said.

There are no easy solutions, say city and county officials.

Steve Sugerman, assistant chief of staff to Mayor Richard Riordan, said the descriptions of the homeless encampment are “tragic” but that responsibility for the property rests with the county.

“The combination of drugs and homelessness is devastating and creates a type of problem that is extremely difficult to deal with,” Sugerman said.

Les Detweiler, a county management analyst who has been reviewing proposals of what to do with the abandoned lot since November, said he expected that county officials soon would devise a proposal for the land, the site of a state office building that was torn down 20 years ago. For several months, county officials have toyed with turning a portion of the lot into a parking facility.

“We were aware of the problem, we had been studying alternatives,” Detweiler said.

Deirdre Hill, president of the Los Angeles Police Commission, said Monday that even if officers cleared the camp, the problems that created it--drug abuse and homelessness--would persist. Moving the blight away from the view of city and county decision makers, she said, will not eliminate it.

Los Angeles City Councilwoman Rita Walters, who represents downtown, said Monday that she would ask the Civic Center Authority--a combined city-county committee--to take up the issue of the homeless encampment on an emergency basis at its meeting today. “We’ve been working on it, trying to get it straightened up for years,” she said.