CommentsAT LENGTH-Los Angeles Police Department Cmdr. Dominic H. Choi appeared at the Los Angeles Police Commission this week and explained that LAPD officers had arrested 14,500 homeless people in 2017 as part of his year-end homelessness report. This is a 10 percent increase from the year before for an agency that claims that this is a problem that we can’t arrest our way out of. But apparently, they’re trying.
In a report on the issue, the Los Angeles Times found that homeless arrests climbed 31 percent in recent years, and that outside of the 6,400 felony arrests reported by Choi, the majority were for minor offenses, including failure to appear in court on quality-of-life citations. This is curious legal hypocrisy in that police are knowingly citing people who are incapable of paying for a ticket in the first place and then arresting them later for not showing up when a bench warrant is issued.
Cmdr. Choi oversees the Homeless Outreach and Proactive Engagement or HOPE teams that were created by Mayor Eric Garcetti and the Los Angeles City Council. The HOPE teams were supposed to be a means to offer a more compassionate response to citizen complaints by offering services and referrals to people living on the streets. The teams are comprised of Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority case workers, specially trained police officers and Sanitation Dept. workers. I have seen them in action and I’ve come to the conclusion that HOPE is definitely a misnomer.
We frequently receive desperate calls from the residents in the local urban encampment down at the U.S. Post Office on Beacon Street about LAPD “raids” during which police arrest people and “steal” their property. It has been explained to me that since these “enforcements are in response to complaints” about illegal activities, they don’t have to adhere to a rule enshrined in the Los Angeles Municipal Code 56.11 that require a 24-hour notice for “clean ups.”
The LA City Council approved a revised version of LA Municipal Code 56.11, which was originally revised nearly three years ago to strictly criminalize storing attended property in public spaces, which impacted homeless residents and street vendors the most. Concerned that the new version would be cause for litigation for violations of the constitution, the mayor halted further enforcement of the law until the city council revised it again.
The city council, however, did not substantially change the ordinance during the second revision process. Myrna Bohan, the development director for the affordable housing advocacy group, Venice Community Housing noted that the ordinance that was passed still has criminal penalties for possessing property that is not causing any other hazard except for blocking the sidewalk or causing a health and safety concern. Bohan noted that it also limits total property in personal possession to the amount that can fit in a standard city trash bin, determined by the police officer or sanitation representative enforcing the law.
“The council, despite many promises, did not create any additional voluntary storage facilities or allocate any additional funding to permanent supportive housing during the eight months it had to reconsider this law,” Bohan said in a blog post on the subject recently.
The real problem is that, as Councilman Mike Bonin points out in his Community Voices column, “In 2006, a federal court told the City of Los Angeles it was ‘cruel and unusual punishment’ to forbid people from sleeping on sidewalks unless the City offered sufficient housing and shelter as an alternative.” Yet, Councilman Joe Buscaino continues to place the LAPD in the untenable situation of pursuing enforcement rather than solving the immediate problem of providing emergency shelter.
The city is a long way away from offering sufficient housing or shelter and the amount of people taken off the streets doesn’t even keep up with the growing number who are being forced out by gentrification, the housing shortage and low wages. This while Buscaino has supported more market-rate housing in San Pedro where about 420 new units are slated for construction in the next year and only three of those units will be targeted as “low income.”
Speaking of failure to provide affordable housing, Buscaino is also implicated in the Sea Breeze $72 million apartment scandal. This bit of news isn’t particularly “news” anymore except that the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s office recently indicted the Torrance-based developer Samuel Leung for making illegal campaign contributions while seeking a change to the zoning for his 352-unit apartment complex in Harbor Gateway.
Buscaino and four LA City Council reps plus Mayor Garcetti all received tainted campaign contributions and then approved the re-zoning over the objections of both the Zoning Commission and the local neighborhood council. For some unknown reason, Leung even made large donations to then-Congresswoman Janice Hahn even though she could not vote or influence the decision to change the zoning.
In a more perfect world, if Leung is convicted in the Sea Breeze case, the 352 units would be converted into housing for the homeless and he would be sentenced to house arrest in one of those apartments. If the illegal campaign contributions are to be forfeited, they should all be donated to LAHSA or some other non-profit for supportive services for the homeless. That would be justice, but don’t hold your breath.
The city council members will continue to accept campaign contributions from developers who are eager to build with little incentive to include affordable housing units. The council will continue to approve them while wringing their hands publicly about the homeless crisis.
The day the City of Los Angeles offers real HOPE to the homeless, rather than arresting them for quality-of-life offenses, will be the day the homeless crisis is treated as a real crisis. Emergency shelters, authorized parking areas and sanctioned encampments need to be put in place now, while the slow-boating of permanent housing grinds its way through the city’s political process.
(James Preston Allen is the founding publisher and executive editor of RLnews where this was originally posted. He has been involved in community affairs for more than 40 years in the Los Angeles Harbor Area.) Prepped for CityWatch by Linda Abrams.
