Skid Row Bills: Can We Legislate Homelessness Away?

State Senator Cedillo put on his press conference last Friday with community leaders, and armed with a handful of proposed legislative bills.

Here is the list of proposed bills:

Senate Bill 1318 – Creates stricter penalties for anyone selling drugs near rehabilitation centers or service centers.

Senate Bill 1320 – Creates “Narcotics Recovery Zones” in Skid Row prohibiting anyone convicted of selling drugs from being in the zone.

Senate Bill 1319 - Prohibits any arresting agency from taking people who need drug treatment, mental health services or shelter outside of their jurisdiction. (In other words, “anti-dumping”.)

Senate Bill 1321 - The "Community Reunification Act” requires that the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department release an inmate either to the inmate's previous residence or the sheriff's substation or detention facility closest to the point of arrest.

Senate Bill 1322 – The “Fair Share Zoning Bill” calls for cities and counties to identify sites in the housing portion of their general plans that will be reserved for emergency homeless shelters and residential service providers.

Senate Bill 1323 - Provide $2.5 million in funding for a felony offender drug treatment program targeting those with serious mental health and substance abuse issues.

Clearly, Cedillo’s office has been busy. The question is whether all of this new legislation will resolve homelessness. I think it will certainly help “clean up” Skid Row. The criminal elements of Skid Row should get a wake-up call with these bills.

However, will this also encourage law enforcement to “criminalize” homelessness? In other words, if you are homeless on the streets—but doing nothing illegal—will you be a target?

The critics of these bills also say that there is no serious funding behind these bills. Homelessness can only be resolved when more resources are invested in the problem.

So… can we legislate homelessness away? If legislation includes more resources, encourages a better coordinated system, and actually builds more shelter beds and permanent housing, then the answer is: Yes.

A balanced approach of more resources, better coordinated system, and laws that keep our streets safe and clean is what we need.

I call it: “Clean Streets, Not Mean Streets.” (Here is the op-ed piece on this.)