Attackers of Homeless Men Were Officially Ordered To Stand Trial For Attempted Murder

Last Thursday, the judge ordered the two teenagers to stand trial, says NBC channel 4. Here is the beginning of their article:
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LOS ANGELES -- Two 19-year-old men, who were allegedly inspired by a "Bumfights" video to carry out baseball bat attacks on two homeless men, were ordered Thursday to stand trial on attempted murder and other charges.

Superior Court Commissioner Ronald Rose said he found sufficient evidence to hold Justin Edward Brumfield of Los Angeles and William Alexander Orantes of Inglewood on one count of attempted murder and two counts of assault with a deadly weapon.

The commissioner denied requests by defense attorneys to dismiss the case, noting that one of the Aug. 16 attacks in downtown Los Angeles led to "very serious injuries" to the victim.
Ernest Adams was hospitalized in intensive care for more than two weeks as a result of his injuries, Los Angeles police Detective Kris Tu testified.

The other homeless victim, Gerald McHenry, told police that he was sleeping in the area of Ninth and Wall streets when he felt somebody strike him in the arm and saw someone walking away with a baseball bat, according to Tu, the lead investigator.

Also Tuesday, LAPD Officer Jose Ferreira testified that Brumfield initially denied that they had done anything wrong.

The officer said he later observed two aluminum baseball bats on the back seat of the Toyota Corolla in which the two men had been riding.

Brumfield and Orantes remain jailed on just over $1 million bail, each pending arraignment Oct. 13 at the downtown Los Angeles courthouse.

Here is the complete article.

Pasadena’s Turn To Deny Homeless “Dumping”

Yesterday’s Pasadena Star News article is titled, “Issue’s Clear: The Homeless Need Help.” Here's the article.

Basically the law enforcement officials in Pasadena say that they would not send their homeless people to downtown Los Angeles because they have their own homeless programs to send people to.

The article continues:

“Pasadena has a number of resources for the homeless. El Monte partners with a nonprofit agency for help. It's not likely officers in these departments would take a trip downtown if they had other choices, and they do. But there it is, Smith's allegation.

“Pasadena police spokeswoman Janet Pope said officers sometimes transport homeless people to one of three agencies in Los Angeles but that it is done in partnership with the Los Angeles County Department of Health.

“Pope noted that the agencies are in close proximity to Skid Row, the informal name of an area that's home to rundown, low-rent hotels and a large number of homeless surviving in doorways and Dumpsters. A population indeed "on the skids."

“Perhaps that is what Smith observed, Pope offered.”

The article goes on to talk about the need for a regional homeless shelter and resource center in the San Gabriel Valley that the San Gabriel Valley Coalition of Governments should support. Then cities in the San Gabriel Valley would have appropriate options to send people who are homeless.

The article pinpoints an important theme:

“But this whole brouhaha over Sheriff’s Department deputies taking a homeless, mentally ill man to a faith-based shelter in Los Angeles again underscores the need for more homeless shelters throughout the county.”

The Billion Dollar Solution

Yes, billion with a “B”. That is the answer to the question: “How much would it cost Los Angeles County to really solve homelessness?”

The Los Angeles Economic Roundtable, a nonprofit research organization, recently published their study, “Estimating The Scope Of Services and Costs To End Homelessness in LA.”

And the answer to the cost is……. $1 Billion to $1.5 Billion per year for the next ten years!

Some of the other findings:

• Between 4,728 to 8,895 affordable housing units for families are needed annually in LA County.
• 25% of families members homeless 6 months or less are in need of emergency/transitional shelter.
• 20% of LA homeless persons are in need of substance abuse treatment, and 25% need mental health services.
• 135,000 individuals and 119,100 family members are homeless each year in LA County.
• 15% of homeless persons make at least $15,000 a year.


Here is the link to the study: Billion Dollar Solution.

To put this in perspective. This is the amount the federal government spends on homelessness every year for the whole country. (So is the federal government not spending enough, or is this L.A. County figure too high?)

L.A. Independent Reports on PATH Grand Opening

This local paper briefly mentions the grand opening of the 65-bed Interim Housing Center that PATH recently opened. Here is the article.

It quotes Councilmember Garcetti as saying, “This is not just a crisis of housing, it’s a crisis of heart,”says Garcetti. “It’s a crisis of how we define ourselves in the city.”

Nicely put…

LA Times: They're victims too

A great editorial was published by the Los Angeles Times Editorial Board today on the state of homelessness in Los Angeles. Here is the complete text:
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ANGELENOS OPENED THEIR HEARTS and wallets to those left temporarily homeless by hurricanes Katrina and Rita. So it seems odd that so little is done to relieve the plight of the thousands of permanently homeless people living among us.

Occasionally, when incidents involving the homeless make the news, public officials in Southern California can be counted on to take action. The latest stir was last week, when two sheriff's deputies were caught dropping off in downtown L.A.'s skid row a self-proclaimed mentally ill man with a history of arrests. Los Angeles police have suspected for years that other law enforcement agencies have been dumping homeless people downtown. The incident prompted a report from the county Sheriff's Department and a call from the mayor for an investigation by the city attorney's office.

When all the probes and reports are completed, it's possible that some Southern California agencies might be shamed into ending the practice of dumping. That might keep the homeless population slightly less concentrated in skid row and Santa Monica, but it would do nothing to address the real problem.

The Los Angeles County homeless population is estimated at 91,000 at any given time. The majority are too mentally ill or addicted (or both) to hold down a job and support themselves. They sleep in doorways and inside tunnels, living in filthy conditions that make the nightmarish Superdome, where Katrina's victims were forced to stay in the immediate aftermath of the hurricane, almost seem elegant.

Many people are more sympathetic to hurricane victims because they think that there is an element of choice and personal responsibility to ordinary homelessness, making such people different from those who lost their homes because of a natural catastrophe. But no one chooses to be mentally ill.

There aren't any easy solutions, not least because some homeless people don't want to be helped. There have, however, been a host of attempts to reduce the problem; most have failed because of a lack of political will and funding to keep them going.

There is some hope on the horizon. Last November, voters passed Proposition 63, which imposed a 1% levy on taxable incomes over $1 million to pay for mental health services. The "millionaire tax" is an irresponsible funding mechanism, creating a precedent that is rife for abuse. Nonetheless, the $280 million it's expected to bring to Los Angeles County over the next three years could put a significant dent in the homeless population if spent wisely.

Meanwhile, an array of public and nonprofit officials has been working to complete a long-delayed 10-year plan to end homelessness in L.A. It is now slated for release in February. Doubtless it will contain many good suggestions, but without the political will to combat homelessness, they will be worthless. That means public officials will have to spend at least as much time and energy examining the underlying causes of homelessness as they do probing whether the homeless are being dumped in skid row.

Other Cities Responding To LAPD Accusations

Although the Whittier Police Department was not singled out for “dumping” homeless people into downtown Los Angeles, the Whittier Daily News writes: “Whittier police officers routinely take homeless people to area shelters, ask them to move on and, if a person is drunk and disorderly, possibly jail him or her -- but they never drop them off at Skid Row in downtown Los Angeles, officials said Tuesday.” (Here is the Whittier News article.)

The article continues: “Meanwhile, Whittier police officials say officers have alternatives for dealing with homeless people caught loitering or panhandling, including several homeless shelters and church programs, spokesman Officer Alan dela Pena said.

"We are fortunate that we have a number of shelters in this area, and also going to downtown L.A. would be a half-hour drive. We wouldn't do that," he said. "Also, whenever we put someone in our cars, we have to let dispatch know, so there is a record of that."

“Whittier police, who patrol Whittier and Santa Fe Springs, typically direct homeless people to Saint Matthias Episcopal Church, where there is a soup kitchen, and to the Whittier Area First Day Coalition, a shelter that provides job training, meals and health screenings to homeless people.”

The Daily Breeze reports on the City of El Segundo’s response: “An El Segundo police official on Monday strongly denied recent allegations that the law enforcement agency dumped homeless on the streets of downtown Los Angeles. (Here is the Daily Breeze article.)

"It's not our policy to do that," Capt. David Cummings said. "It's not our practice to do that. We wouldn't condone doing that."

Cummings said the practice may have existed decades ago, but is banned.
He said El Segundo officers occasionally give a ride to a homeless person or take someone to a bus stop, but do not travel to downtown Los Angeles.

So for now… everyone is trying to cover their backs on these allegations. There is some good that comes out of all of this… law enforcement agencies throughout the county will think twice when they are tempted to “dump” their homeless into downtown Los Angeles.

L.A. County Sheriff’s Department Responds to Homeless “Dumping”

Was it “dumping” or was it a couple of concerned law enforcement officers trying to help a homeless person access services?

“It” is the accusation made by the Los Angeles Police Department that L.A. County Sheriff’s officers “dumped” a homeless man onto Skidrow (Central City East). In essence, this would be a validation to the “urban myth” that law enforcement agencies are “dumping” homeless people into downtown Los Angeles.

The Sheriff’s Department responded (according to the Los Angeles Times--here is the article)…

The Sheriff's Department has maintained that its personnel did nothing wrong in the Harris case. Sheriff Lee Baca and others have said the deputies were simply trying to get Harris services by delivering him to a place where he could receive help.

"They weren't just trying to get rid of him from around the jails," Steve Whitmore, the sheriff's spokesman, said late Tuesday. "They could have done that by calling the LAPD. The jail area is their jurisdiction, and the LAPD would have had to arrest him. [The deputies] were trying to help this man."

So, who is correct? Is this just another sign of the rivalry between the city and county? Or is this accusation real?

For most leaders involved in addressing the homeless problem in Los Angeles, we know that Sheriff Lee Baca has embraced both a caring attitude toward helping the homeless and a desire to do something about the problem. Clearly, this “dumping” is not a Sheriff’s department policy.

However, out of frustration with the problem of homelessness, sometimes offering a quick fix solution (take the person to another community) is a tempting option.

I was interviewed yesterday by a reporter from the L.A. Downtown News who is also looking into whether hospitals “dump” homeless patients in downtown.

This homeless “dumping” is not just a Los Angeles phenomenon. I remember receiving a telephone call a few years ago from local officials in Honolulu, Hawaii. They told me that their homeless problem has increased. Why? They said that cities from the mainland were giving their homeless people a one-way airplane ticket to Hawaii…

L.A.Councilmember Eric Garcetti Highlights Project YIMBY On His Blog

It is great to highlight visionary politicians like Los Angeles Councilmember Eric Garcetti. As the local representative of District 13, Councilmember Garcetti knows that supporting homeless service initiatives doesn’t get one elected. But he does know that helping homeless people get off the streets is the right thing to do—for a local politician and for a local community.

Politicians should be leaders, not just watchers of political polls. Councilmember Garcetti’s has taken the lead to support and highlight Project Y!MBY, a greater Hollywood homeless initiative, that mobilizes local stakeholders to help end homelessness. (Here is the link to Project Y!MBY)

Councilmember Garcetti highlights this unique local homeless initiative on his blog. (Here is the link to cd13.com.)

L.A. Mayor Wants City Attorney To Investigate Homeless “Dumping”

Mayor Villaraigosa called on the City Attorney, yesterday, to look into “what are the legal recourses we have where jurisdictions—including, but not limited to, law enforcement agencies—purposefully drop off the homeless in our city.”

The mayor also wants to look into imposing stronger ordinances to crack down on the practice of “dumping.”
(Here's the article.)

This is in response to the LAPD’s accusation that the county and other law enforcement agencies are dropping off homeless people into the downtown area.

This “leaf blower” mentality of sweeping (or carting off) people who are homeless into other neighborhoods is not new. It is a short-term—but ineffective—solution to a complex human problem.

I write about this in my book: “A quiet match of shoving and pushing, pushing and shoving commences. People sleeping on the streets become human pinballs in our society’s pinball machinery. They are bounced around one neighborhood to another, except most people do not hear the whistles and bells of this sad societal game. The sweeps usually occur late at night or early in the morning when most housed people are cocooned in their own bedrooms. Nobody really wants to watch this game.”

Los Angeles, with the largest homeless population in the country, plays out the homeless drama like no other.

Project Y!MBY (Yes! In My Back Yard) Kicks Off

At the PATH Hollywood Center grand opening last week, Los Angeles Councilmember Eric Garcetti kicked off PATH’s local homeless initiative—Project Y!MBY. This new initiative will be based in the greater Hollywood area. The goal is to mobilize existing homeless resources and local stakeholders to help its homeless population access housing.

Councilmember Garcetti, flanked by West Hollywood Mayor Abbe Land, Assemblyperson Paul Koretz, Hollywood Chamber of Commerce CEO Leron Gubler, Hollywood Entertainment District CEO Kerry Morrison, and numerous other local leaders, challenged the audience to join this local homeless initiative.

“We must say YES! Yes, there is a problem of homelessness in our community. Yes, we want to solve this crisis. Yes, we want to use existing resources and services. Yes, we care about people with no homes. Yes, the solutions are in our backyard. And yes, we can do it!” challenged Garcetti.

The new 65-bed Hollywood Interim Housing center opened its doors three months ago, and has helped 100 people off the streets of Hollywood. Along with a full-time street outreach team, and the PATH Mall (20 public and private agencies under one roof), this Interim Housing Center will be the center of ending homelessness in Hollywood.

Another Project Y!MBY activity—Project Y!MBY Connect Day—will challenge local volunteers to help connect homeless people into services and housing. This day will be on December 8th, and will be in conjunction with the National Project Homeless Connect Day.

New Mental Health Act Will Help Mentally Ill Homeless People

The Robin Hood-type voter initiative—Proposition 63—that was passed last November imposed a 1% tax on millionaires to be used for additional mental health care. This Mental Health Services Act will raise $600 million state-wide, of which Los Angeles County will receive about $280 million.

The Los Angeles Times reported on this today. (Here is the LA Times article.) (Here is another article.)

After a series of community meetings, focus groups, and summits, the plan to spend this money is taking shape. Some of the key aspects to this plan are the following:

• Safe havens open 24 hours a day for homeless mentally ill people, with each facility providing up to 25 semiprivate rooms.

• Client-run support centers that would be open to the general public and provide peer counseling.

• Housing specialists who would help youths and adults negotiate housing laws, clean up bad credit, help prepare for landlord interviews and find shelter.

• Urgent care centers located near hospital emergency rooms to provide substance abuse services, medicine refills and employment and other referrals for people who do not require admittance to psychiatric hospitals.

• Drop-in centers open evenings and weekends for those 16 to 25 years old with emotional disturbances, particularly foster children.

• Respite care, parenting education and couples therapy for caregivers of children with emotional and mental illnesses.

Finally, the community is resolved to help solve one of the major barriers that a homeless person might struggle with—mental illness.