Downtown Los Angeles: The Leaf Blower Mentality?

The Los Angeles Times reports today that a LAPD Central Division captain saw firsthand how two L.A. County Sheriff’s officers were “dumping” a homeless person onto downtown Skidrow. (Here is the LA Times article.)

The article begins: “For decades, it's been an enduring urban tale about downtown Los Angeles, often talked about but never proved: Police departments wanting to get rid of society's lost and neglected — the homeless, mentally ill and criminals — simply drove through downtown and dumped them in skid row.

“But on Tuesday, evidence landed in the lap of the person who most needed it: Capt. Andrew Smith, commanding officer of the Los Angeles Police Department's Central Division.

“The cruiser, he said, turned south on San Pedro, then west on 7th Street to San Julian Street. There, Smith watched in disbelief as two deputies ‘pulled over, took a guy in handcuffs out of the car. They took off the cuffs and handed him a bag,’ Smith said.”

The Sheriff’s department denies “dumping” the man, but instead wanted to help him access services at one of the downtown missions.

I have a chapter of this homeless phenomenon in my book. I titled this chapter, “The Leaf Blower Mentality.” Cities across Los Angeles County and across the country have the same story—“That other city is sending their homeless to us…”

I write: “Communities are resorting to a leaf blower mentality. They put their masks on to cover the taste and smells of homelessness, pack their mechanical blowers on their backs, crank up the engines of change, and blow these people away, into other communities, into other states. Like people are homeless leaves fallen from trees, scattered on the streets, annoying the community.”
The leaf blower mentality is a tempting solution. Rather than fund enough shelter beds, supportive services, and permanent housing for the homeless in your community, simply give them one-way bus tickets, or a free ride from the local law enforcement to another community.

Unfortunately, scattering people across the county or across the country is not the solution.

The story for today is not whether the Sheriff’s department is dumping people into Skid Row or not, the story is when will we seriously start providing long-term and permanent solutions to homelessness in our community. Short-term band-aid approaches do not work.