Homeless Sprawl
The City of Angels struggles to deal with a devil of a place
Rays of hope. That has proved to be a difficult task in a county where not-in-my-backyardism is so strong that the city of Santa Clarita had actually planned to bus its entire homeless population to Los Angeles. (The plan was aborted last year after bad publicity.) "People need to be realistic. Every elected official needs to accept permanent supportive housing in their district," says L.A. City Councilwoman Jan Perry, whose district includes Skid Row. "Two thirds of Los Angeles County is not in compliance. If I were a lawyer for the ACLU, I'd be looking at that."
But there is some good news. Union Rescue Mission on Skid Row recently bought Hope Gardens, a former retirement home in the San Fernando Valley, to provide housing and services for elderly women and for mothers and children. With day care and other services, women living at Hope Gardens would be able to go to school while their kids were cared for. The project was nearly done in by local opposition, even though it is separated by several miles from the nearest neighborhood. It is the kind of place Crystal Harper, 33, and the hundreds of other mothers with children on Skid Row would welcome. "My kids are terrified to go outside down here, and so am I," said Harper, as she waited outside the Union Rescue Mission for the school bus with her 6-year-old son. Harper is in a yearlong "second step" program, which includes job training and other life skills. She and her two children share a room with another single mother and her kids. Harper believes she could turn her life around if she could catch her breath away from Skid Row.
Hope Gardens will happen. And so will several other small projects here and there around the county. A recent vote by the county board of supervisors will direct $100 million toward new homeless programs in the next year. And Villaraigosa has proposed to the City Council that $4.6 million in new money be spent to fund 372 beds at emergency shelters. The mayor has also pushed for help from the state. But when it comes to the big fix-long-term supportive housing-the best hope went down the drain in the November election. Measure H, a bond issue that would have created $1 billion for supportive housing, fell just short of the required two-thirds majority. "There is plenty of goodwill," says Douglas Mirell, a commissioner on the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority. "But ... it will be at least two years before we see another bond measure like that."
In the meantime, Skid Row will continue to bedevil the City of Angels-especially when the sun goes down, the tent cities go up, and the homeless try to find their way in the dark.
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