Pubdate: Tue, 19 Nov 2002
Source: Los Angeles Times (CA)
Copyright: 2002 Los Angeles Times
Contact:  http://www.latimes.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/248
Author: Carla Rivera, Times Staff Writer
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/rehab.htm (Treatment)

CRACKDOWN DEMANDED ON SKID ROW CAMPS

Business Group, Officials Say Squalor Is Ruining Downtown. Activists Say 
Problem Is Lack Of Beds.

A group of downtown Los Angeles civic leaders and residents on Monday said 
the growing homeless population on skid row is a public health and safety 
catastrophe and proposed that the city enact an anti-encampment ordinance 
and other measures to improve conditions.

The Central City Assn., backed by City Council members Jan Perry and Tom La 
Bonge, Police Chief William J. Bratton and several other advocacy groups, 
said the number of homeless living in squalor on downtown streets -- many 
with severe mental illnesses and addictions -- has reached crisis 
proportions and is threatening downtown's economic revitalization.

Some agencies that provide services to the homeless, however, denounced the 
plan, saying it was merely another attempt to sweep the streets of homeless 
people who have nowhere else to go.

Putting an exclamation point on the concerns, Bratton said the 
concentration of homeless downtown is worse than he has seen in New York or 
Boston.

According to city counts conducted for the 2000 Census, from 9,000 to 
15,000 people live on the streets of central Los Angeles, said Perry, as 
many as 3,000 to 5,000 of them on the 50 square blocks of downtown's skid 
row. At the same time, the city is trying to attract new residents to live 
in renovated loft buildings in the area.

At a news conference at the newly rehabilitated Farmers and Merchants Bank 
building on skid row's edge, the Central City Assn. and its allies asserted 
that current ordinances are ineffective in preventing public urination and 
defecation, camping on sidewalks and aggressive panhandling.

"We are focusing on a portion of the problem that no one has wanted to talk 
about, those dwelling on the streets who have set up tents and boxes," said 
Central City Assn. President Carol Schatz. "We need to address that kind of 
behavior because it takes the streets away from all of us."

Her group is proposing a plan it says will improve the quality of life 
downtown while also showing compassion for the truly sick and needy.

Besides the anti-encampment ordinance, proposals include:

- - Specific city bans on public urination and defecation. The acts currently 
fall under the category of a nuisance crime, but are rarely prosecuted, say 
civic officials.

- - Creation of an LAPD street-crime patrol with the purpose of catching drug 
dealers and other criminals who prey on the homeless.

- - A city-financed downtown community court that would review petty crimes 
and divert homeless offenders to social service agencies rather than send 
them to jail.

- - Audits of the Los Angeles Homeless Services Agency and individual service 
providers so they are held accountable for spending government funds 
effectively on housing, counseling, job training or other programs.

- - City- and county-funded treatment for recovering homeless drug and 
alcohol addicts.

- - Coordination among law enforcement agencies to release prisoners and 
parolees back into the communities where they were arrested rather than 
dumping them downtown, as is now common practice.

Bratton said he is studying proposals to beef up patrols downtown but made 
no commitment.

The new police chief, who is staying in a downtown hotel until he finds a 
permanent home, said he and his wife had been accosted by aggressive 
panhandlers several times while shopping.

Over the weekend, a man being ejected from a skid row transient hotel was 
stabbed to death with an ice pick, Bratton said.

As New York commissioner, Bratton was credited with cracking down on 
nuisance crimes such as panhandling and enforcing bans on sleeping on the 
streets. "If left unchecked these behaviors destroy neighborhoods, destroy 
cities and that's what's happening right outside this door," he said.

Other California cities, such as San Francisco and Santa Monica, are 
getting tougher on squalid street conditions associated with some homeless 
people.

Some advocacy groups, however, said the Central City Assn. plan fails to 
address the lack of shelter beds that leads many homeless to sleep on the 
streets and said the group is motived by the economic interests of its members.

"Most addicts and mentally ill are not service-resistant," said Gilbert 
Saldate, homeless coordinator for the Tri-City Mental Health agency. "They 
want housing and supportive services desperately. What they are resistant 
to are the rules, penalties and sanctions that some service providers and 
governmental agencies put in their way."

Bob Erlenbusch, executive director of the Coalition to End Hunger and 
Homelessness, added: "Our position has always been framed by compassion in 
the deepest sense of the word. We defend people's right to sleep outside 
when there is no alternative."

But Perry said a downtown redevelopment plan could provide needed money for 
shelter, housing and social programs, and she lambasted advocacy groups, 
including the Homeless Coalition, that have sued the city to block it.

"I'm very hopeful we'll settle these lawsuits very soon so we can stop 
wasting time," said Perry, who called the situation on skid row a 
"catastrophe."

"It's neither compassionate nor humane to argue people have the right to 
live on the streets in their own waste."
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