Funding Woes May Doom Housing Authority Police

The police force that patrols Los Angeles’ 15 housing developments could be eliminated beginning next month unless the City Council bails it out with a federal grant, a housing official said Thursday.

City officials said they were dismayed by the possibility of such a loss, particularly when the number of gang homicides is climbing in much of the city.

“The worst thing in the world right now would be to disband the Housing Authority Police,” said Councilwoman Janice Hahn, whose southeast Los Angeles district encompasses six housing developments. Three of those, Jordan Downs, Nickerson Gardens and Imperial Courts, have some of the worst gang violence.

“I have asked people in the Police Department, point-blank, if the Housing Authority Police were not there, could you pick up the slack,” Hahn said. “And they’ve looked me straight in the eye and said, ‘No way.’ ”

The councilwoman said now “is the wrong time to do this, to be dismantling a law enforcement agency. Gang members will look at this and think there’s new territory they can go into and control.”

The housing police are armed, sworn officers who are employees of the housing agency. There are 35 housing officers; last year there were 63.

At issue is whether the City Council next spring will award the Housing Authority a Community Development Block Grant. Those grants are provided by the federal government to cities and urban counties to revitalize neighborhoods and expand housing and economic opportunities. However, the demand by competing agencies throughout the city far exceeds the money available.

The Housing Authority’s executive director, Donald J. Smith, said the agency faces a deficit of nearly $6 million for the coming calendar year and is asking the city to award it a $4.7-million block grant to keep the police force afloat.

But Smith said the force already is so small that eliminating it “probably won’t have any kind of material effect on law enforcement.” For several years, he said, “the LAPD has done 95% of the patrolling in the public housing.”

However, Councilman Dennis Zine, a former officer, said the city’s Police Department is stretched too thin to lose even the few officers who help protect the housing developments.

“The LAPD is given a tremendous responsibility to solve all the problems in the city of Los Angeles.... You can only stretch a rubber band so far,” Zine said

Representatives for Mayor James K. Hahn said he also opposes eliminating the housing police force and will urge the agency to find other funding.

“We are not going to let security in these areas diminish,” said Deputy Mayor Matt Middlebrook. “We’re going to be looking for creative solutions to this issue.” Middlebrook said the agency should not pin all its hopes on a block grant.

But Smith said one of the problems is that the Housing Authority was ordered to make massive repairs in some of the developments, which caused money to be redirected away from law enforcement.

“I’m not optimistic [about getting the block grant] because there’s such a demand on that block grant money,” he said. Smith said he would need a commitment from the city this month that the money will be awarded. Without it, he said, he probably will recommend to the agency’s board Dec. 27 that the police force be phased out.

In the meantime, Smith said, he would try to persuade city officials to award the funding: “We’ll hope right up until the end, and try to get as much, with as much gusto, as we can.”