Zoning Limits on the Down and Out

It seemed like a simple enough request when the Salvation Army was told it needed to expand its Long Beach-based pre-release program for state prisoners.

The new state requirements meant increasing the number of beds from 37 to 45. But the agency was stopped cold when it bumped up against the city’s sweeping ban on social service programs in the downtown area.

The city gave the agency its check back and refused to process a conditional-use permit for the additional eight beds. Without the permit, the Salvation Army believed it might have to shut down Beach Haven Lodge, a pre-parole facility for nonviolent offenders.

“Things were pretty intense for a while,” Maj. James Hood said. “Our entire program was jeopardized.”

As it stands, the state is showing some flexibility on the 45-bed requirement, but the program remains in jeopardy.

Hood is but one of a growing number of Long Beach social service agency administrators struggling with new curbs from City Hall.

The tough zoning ban has put Long Beach on the vanguard of cities in California and elsewhere that are digging in to their municipal code books to rein in growing numbers of homeless people, the mentally ill, paroled prisoners and recovering alcoholics and drug addicts who are flocking to downtown areas for services.

But in doing so, the city has raised serious legal questions and sent shock waves through the nonprofit service sector of a city that in earlier eras helped pioneer the development of alcohol and drug treatment programs.

Long Beach is by no means unique in its efforts to attack what it perceives as an overconcentration of service agencies in its downtown. Los Angeles is facing similar problems, particularly in the San Pedro area, and the city attorney’s office is following developments in Long Beach closely.

Nationally, Maria Foscarinis, executive director of the Washington-based National Law Center on Homelessness and Poverty, said she could find only one other city, Hartford, Conn., with a moratorium as sweeping as Long Beach’s, though she believes there are others.

She said Long Beach is part of a national trend in which more and more cities are looking to zoning laws to deal with the knotty problem of large numbers of the homeless and poor seeking services. Foscarinis said the actions are intensifying the problems caused by cuts made by federal and state lawmakers in food stamps, financial assistance and benefits to the disabled.

“There have been massive cuts in aid programs for poor people, often with the understanding that private programs will fill the gaps,” she said. “With cities taking what I consider hostile and punitive actions against poor people, who will be there to fill the gaps?”

In California, Sacramento, San Jose and other cities are wrestling with the same problem.

“It’s a growing problem,” said Dwight Stenbakken, legislative director of the League of California Cities.

As in many other cities, low real estate prices, good public transportation and an abundance of social service agencies have made downtown Long Beach a magnet for both the needy and the agencies that help them. Residential programs for the homeless, battered women, alcoholics and drug addicts and the mentally ill are all within walking distance of each other. There are free meal and clothing giveaways, and opportunities for day work.

But the raggedy and sometimes frightening appearances of those attracted to such programs do not fit well with the image residents and municipal leaders want for their city.

Take the Salvation Army’s Beach Haven Lodge. Open for about 20 years, it has a generally good reputation. But its residents arrive in orange Department of Corrections jumpsuits, wearing wrist and ankle shackles. The Salvation Army has asked that the new arrivals be dropped off at the rear of the building. But often the prisoners are left at the front door and sometimes have to wait outside, which badly frightens some neighbors.

Not too far away, long lines form outside Christian Outreach Appeal, which offers free meals to the poor twice a day. Local merchants say having the homeless and others walk to the agency hurts business. Its proximity to several elementary schools also disturbs residents.

Prompted by complaints from residents and business leaders, the moratorium, adopted in March, is viewed by city leaders as a temporary solution to a problem that they hope to solve with a new zoning plan that will be unveiled next month.

“There is definitely an oversaturation of social service programs in [the downtown area],” said City Councilwoman Jenny Oropeza, who represents the area and co-sponsored the moratorium. “The moratorium is necessary because the current zoning is not consistent with the plan the city has developed for the area.”

The legal theory behind the action is that because the city can regulate the concentration of gun shops, recycling centers and tattoo and massage parlors, then it should also be able to regulate halfway houses and food giveaway programs.

The moratorium, plus the insult of being lumped in with massage parlors and other so-called undesirables, has infuriated administrators of nonprofit agencies.

It seemed a major step backward for a city that on occasion was a symbol of the growth of alcohol and drug treatment programs.

In 1960, Long Beach hosted what then was only the third international convention ever held by Alcoholics Anonymous, attracting AA members from around the world in such numbers that it broke attendance records.

During the 1970s, well-known American political figures--including former First Lady Betty Ford, President Carter’s brother Billy and Sen. Herman Talmadge--were treated for drug and alcohol abuse problems in what was then a pioneering program at the now-closed Naval Hospital.

One of the city’s best-established recovery houses for women, the Flossie Lewis Center, is named after the mother of Mayor Beverly O’Neill because of Lewis’ longtime work with alcoholics and their families.

“We definitely don’t see this as a good thing,” said Denise Dahlhausen of the Long Beach Non-Profit Partnership, a coalition of social service agencies. “We have grave concerns about the impact it will have on social service agencies. It will make it much harder for the agencies to meet the needs of the people.”

Such complaints have already generated an inquiry from the U.S. Department of Justice, which is monitoring the city’s program but so far has not directly intervened.

Legal aid attorneys also are preparing for a court fight.

People who use social services, such as the poor and disabled, are specifically protected from discriminatory practices by federal law, whereas massage parlor operators are not, said Dennis Rockway, senior counsel with the Legal Aid Foundation of Long Beach.

And while the moratorium appears focused on certain agencies, its broadly worded language has been interpreted by the city Planning Department to include the American Cancer Society, the Police Athletic League, the YMCA of Greater Long Beach, local hospitals and Boy Scout and Girl Scout organizations. The city is struggling to find an acceptable definition for what constitutes a social service agency.

Rockway has sent a letter to the city demanding that the moratorium be lifted.

“We think it violates federal fair- housing laws, the Americans with Disabilities Act and a state law which makes it illegal to discriminate on housing based on income,” the attorney said.

Rockway said the city can’t ban homeless shelters while allowing high-end hotels to operate a few blocks away.

“If the city is to allow one type of temporary accommodation, namely hotels, it also has to allow other types of temporary accommodations, namely homeless shelters,” he said.

Nancy Downs, a Long Beach businesswoman who purchased a huge old Victorian mansion near downtown--which is similar to dwellings that are being converted to sober-living houses--wants a permanent ban. Dubbing her street “social service lane,” she said she has grown tired of the poor knocking on her door asking for food or waking up to find lawn furniture and outdoor plants stolen from her porch.

“I am tired of dealing with addicts,” she said.

Down the street at Christian Outreach Appeal, Leon Wood, the program’s director, strongly opposes the moratorium. He said local business people and residents have legitimate concerns but that the real problems are poverty, homelessness and drug abuse, not the agencies dealing with the problems.

“We are spending more time fighting each other than fighting the problem,” he said.