Not All Praise Plan for Homeless Shelter

It is intended to be a beacon of compassion and succor, cultivated, no less, by the powerful and well-connected sheriff of Los Angeles County.

Lee Baca’s idea is to build an open-air homeless shelter downtown near his department’s Twin Towers jail to keep the destitute from returning to that lockup.

But the proposal is meeting surprising resistance from the very community that should be expected to support it most: activists for the homeless.

With the downtown Los Angeles project in the early planning stages, city officials and neighborhood groups have expressed concerns about the proposed shelter’s impact on the surrounding community--concerns that proponents dismiss as classic NIMBYism: not in my backyard.

But more telling has been the reaction of many of downtown’s most prominent nonprofits serving the homeless. They contend that the estimated $9 million it would cost to buy property and build the complex could be better spent improving and expanding existing programs.

“Although we applaud the sheriff’s effort, we want to move away from the homeless maintenance model to the [homelessness] eradication model,” said Pete White, a program manager with the Los Angeles Coalition to End Hunger and Homelessness. “If we’re going to build anything, let’s build affordable housing, habitable places for folks.”

If the Homeless Public Safety Center is built, it would mark one of the few innovative, if controversial, attempts in many years to tackle homelessness in a city notorious for the size of its transient population.

An estimated 11,000 homeless people inhabit downtown Los Angeles, according to government and private data, many squeezed into a squalid, 20-square-block skid row area clustered with overcrowded shelters and missions.

A sizable number of people, however, choose to sleep on the street rather than enter a traditional shelter because they fear being a target of violence or refuse to accept zero-tolerance alcohol and drug rules or required religious services. Many are mentally ill and cannot get treatment and medications.

The proposed complex, to be operated by the nonprofit Volunteers of America independently of the Sheriff’s Department, is designed to attract about 200 such “service-resistant” people to the proposed four-acre complex.

Canvas-topped pods similar to circus tents would be arrayed in a park-like setting with a central kitchen, laundry and bathroom facilities.

The pods would be divided into eight segments, each containing a bed, locker and heater. The spaces could be closed off with drop-down curtains.

The center would place some restrictions on comings and goings and require residents to try to get sober and stay off drugs. It would offer mental health and medical services, substance abuse treatment, vocational counseling and assistance in obtaining veterans’ and Social Security benefits.

The Sheriff’s Department has a practical stake in this. Each day, the nearby jail releases as many as 50 people who have no home and are at risk of being a victim or perpetrator of street crime.

“It is too costly to have people in County Jail whose most significant status is not that of criminal but that of a person who has virtually no income and who’s battling problems of mental illness and alcohol and drug addiction,” Baca said in a telephone interview.

Helping the homeless, especially those who are mentally ill, has become a personal crusade for Baca, who talks of the rights of all human beings to live in a safe, decent, clean environment.

It is the sheriff’s passion as much as his powerful position that has put many homeless activists who question his approach in a pickle.

Charles “Bud” Hayes, executive director of the Single Room Occupancy Housing Corp., said his organization has not taken a position on the proposed shelter. But he said he has told Baca that many nonprofit providers want to know why such a sum couldn’t be used to fund thousands of new beds at emergency shelters or expand the cold/wet weather shelter program.

“I think there needs to be more discussion about this,” said Hayes. “But he is the only county law enforcement official who’s ever taken the time to make an unannounced, non-press-covered walking tour by himself through the toughest parts of skid row and talk to people. He has shown tremendous leadership.”

The sheriff’s point person on the project, Chief Al Scaduto, is more blunt in his assessment.

“There has been a lack of commitment by the city and county to address this issue,” said Scaduto, sitting in his Twin Towers office near a large scale model of the shelter encampment.

“I keep hearing talk about rejuvenating downtown Los Angeles, but as long as people from the suburbs have to climb over transients, they aren’t going to be comfortable coming here.”

Mitchell Netburn, the new executive director of the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority, said New York City, where he previously worked, spends 12 times as much on homeless services as Los Angeles. Many experts say Los Angeles’ homeless problem is as bad or worse than New York’s.

His agency, a joint powers authority created by the city and county, last year had a budget of $48 million, $500,000 of it from the city of Los Angeles and virtually all of the rest from federal funds.

The Housing Authority will review the proposed complex later this month, but Baca and the Volunteers of America said they also will seek other sources of state, federal and private funding for the project.

“The homeless problem in Los Angeles is incredibly serious, and we welcome anybody willing to help out,” said Netburn. “But I’m concerned that the sheriff’s proposal not be viewed as a ceiling, [but] as something that’s cheaper than building permanent housing.”

The project’s supporters say it is intended to be used as a transition for people trying to get on the road to more stable housing outside downtown.

They contend that naysayers may be motivated by distrust of anything new.

“Much of the dilemma downtown is because the existing services are not seen as relevant by homeless people,” said Bob Pratt, president of the Volunteers of America.

Although downtown service providers frequently work in collaboration, they are also protective of their turf and there may be an element of jealousy involved, both sides in the debate concede.

The proposal is not the first untraditional approach to homelessness in downtown.

The 9-year-old Dome Village, near Staples Center, houses up to 24 residents in a cluster of white fiberglass domes. During the 1980s, an open-air encampment built under Mayor Tom Bradley was widely considered to be a failure and was later abandoned.

The site considered for the new effort is an abandoned oil well equipment factory on the outskirts of Chinatown. Next door is a trash recycling center, and on the other side of the fence is a small encampment of homeless people.

Civic leaders in the Chinatown and Arts district say the shelter will attract homeless people to an area where there are few problems. Supporters argue that the shelter--whose perimeters would be patrolled 24 hours a day-- would be a public service.

The one thing everyone seems to agree on is that the sheriff is a very determined man. He has won the support of a powerful ally--state Senate President Pro Tem John Burton (D-San Francisco)--and a $250,000 state grant for initial research and planning.

He has spoken with members of California’s congressional delegation and even President Bush to gather political support for the project.

“My biggest fear is that if we don’t find the most effective plan to help recover people who are homeless, all of this dialogue--which I’m getting a little upset with--is not going to solve the problem,” said Baca. “It’s time to put a little muscle into this solution.”