Homeless in Full View

Inside the city’s Central Library in the heart of downtown, the homeless have become art.

Captured in mostly black and white by 13 photographers, including Tipper Gore, their haggard, downcast faces are symbols of urban sadness.

Browsers meander slowly through the popular exhibit in the library’s Getty Gallery. Its title: “The Way Home: Ending Homelessness in America.” The exhibit’s final day is today.

Outside, on the library’s sidewalk, is the real thing--more than 30 homeless people in soiled and reeking clothes who have been living in cardboard boxes here for the last two weeks.

On their way to lunch at Cafe Pinot or meetings, passersby dressed in pressed suits and heeled shoes step quickly around them to avoid their gaze.

“The real homelessness is outside the gallery. Right here in the streets,” said Ted Hayes, an advocate for the homeless who sits next to his box and an American flag. “But it pains people, so they would rather not see it.”

Hayes led the homeless people from skid row, where they usually live, to the 5th Street side of the library, in the heart of downtown’s high-rise district, to protest the city’s handling of those who live on the streets.

Hayes wants the city to call an emergency meeting to discuss homelessness. He wants the city to donate land and build facilities so the homeless have a dignified place to sleep.

Rather than coming up with real solutions, he says, the city corrals the homeless like animals on its outskirts, out of public view, in skid row, east of downtown.

“They have zero tolerance [for homelessness] in Bunker Hill, but down there in skid row, they overlook it,” he said. “If it’s illegal in one place it should be illegal every place.”

So far, Hayes’ protest has been largely ignored by officials. No emergency meeting has been set.

Police, who are on a first-name basis with Hayes from his many years of protesting, have given him only a couple of warnings.

Los Angeles library officials have not complained to police. They say they are sympathetic to the homeless.

“We have been in touch with Ted, and we’re working with him,” said Peter Persic, a library spokesman. “It has been a very positive experience.”

Police Capt. Stuart Maislin said his department hasn’t received enough complaints to warrant moving the encampment. Hayes also has promised that the library encampment is temporary.

“While some people may view it as an eyesore, it is not disrupting any business or any other activity in that area,” Maislin said of the encampment.

It is illegal to camp on city streets or block sidewalks, but police are reluctant to throw people in jail for it.

Maislin said his department generally handles the problem by responding to complaints. If a business complains, the encampments are taken down. He said he would be thrilled if Hayes found a place for the homeless.

“I would love to be out of it forever,” Maislin said regarding dealing with the homeless. He said he would be happy if they would “find enough shelter and convince hard-core shelter-resistant people to use it.”

For years, Los Angeles officials have mostly looked the other way as the homeless congregated on skid row, building a ragged community with cardboard boxes and broken lives.

The streets, primarily around Industrial Way, are covered with foam cups, cardboard condos and people whose faces show more sadness than anything that could be captured on a gallery wall.

The location of skid row is constantly moving--pushed farther and farther away from the center of downtown.

But even some of the homeless say they are afraid to sleep there. Ernie Bell, 50, and his longtime companion, Yolanda Turner, 41, who spent the past couple of nights beside the library, are among those.

The couple came to Los Angeles a few weeks ago from Oakland, hoping for a new start. They were going to look up some friends and find a job. They couldn’t find their friends or a job.

After spending all of their money, $319, on a motel for two weeks, they ended up in a box on Industrial Way.

Then they met Hayes and moved to the library to help his cause, and to get away from skid row.

“We stayed on skid row, but it’s not suitable,” Bell said.

“It’s a pit,” yelled Turner, rising out of her cardboard box. “I never saw so many terrible people in all my life. I slept with one eye open.”

Bell and Turner say they hope Hayes succeeds, although they don’t plan to be homeless for long. They want to find a way out, or at least a way back to Oakland.

Donna Bates, who likes to call herself “the downtown hostess,” and her 11-year-old twin daughters, are also among those sleeping at the library. Bates said she and her daughters have been homeless for about five years.

She takes Trish and Michelle to school each morning, and then she spends the day begging for spare change. She often makes enough to pay the $20 she needs for a night for a motel room.

Bates, who grew up in Arizona, has her reasons for being here. She left behind a job as a card dealer at a casino and bad memories, including the deaths of her parents.

Bates says she realizes she could probably get welfare to support her daughters, but she doesn’t have their birth certificates. She said she can’t spare the money and the time it would take to get them.

When they sleep on the street she keeps a candle in her box for those times when they are frightened.

“This is real life out here,” Bates said. “It’s not a pretty picture.”