500 to 800 People Are Discharged Each Day From Downtown County Jail

Of course, many of these people are picked up by family or friends and taken home. But there are a good number of people who have no place to go. So they just walk a few blocks away to nearby Skid Row, and join the crowds of homeless on the streets.

After weeks and weeks of homeless “dumping” allegations, public officials are proposing a simple solution... release inmates back to their original neighborhoods. State Senator Gil Cedillo and State Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez plan to propose a new law in January to mandate this solution. Here's an extensive article on this.

The critics—many who are the leaders of the surrounding cities—disagree. They don’t want former inmates being “dumped” in their cities.

Clearly, however it’s not fair for downtown Los Angeles to be the “dumping” ground for former inmates. When Los Angeles County has more people than the states of Rhode Island and Delaware combined, there will be a lot of people being arrested. The Sheriff’s department handles 20,000 inmates per day from facilities around the county.

It’s not fair when all of these people who are incarcerated from around the county are released in only one part of the county—downtown.

For those who live in the bedroom-communities of suburbia… let’s be reasonable. If someone is arrested in your community, when he (or she) has finished jail time, he should be returned back to the community he came from. It just makes sense…

L.A. Mayor Tells Other Mayors: It’s Time To Own Up

Twenty mayors from around the country joined a packed audience to listen to Mayor Villaraigosa’s speech at Harvard University a couple of days ago. Here's the article.

They heard him talk about how the federal government has “failed miserably” in supporting the nation’s civic infrastructure—including homelessness.

He mentioned how Los Angeles has the largest homeless population and the highest poverty rate in the country. He said, “We need to face this shame down and own up to our responsibilities.”

Let’s hope L.A. will take more responsibility in the fight against homelessness…

CNN Doing A Story On Donor-Fatigue

I was contacted by a CNN reporter this morning who is doing research on a story of how private giving has been affected since Katrina and the Asian Tsunami. She said her research shows that the national nonprofit agency giving (think American Red Cross, Salvation Army, etc.) has increased, while the smaller, local nonprofit agency donations have decreased.

It makes sense. Most of the national nonprofits were able to raise funds because of these large catastrophes.

I told the reporter that most local nonprofit groups are dealing with daily human crisis on a local level—like homelessness—without the national media attention’s coverage. No wonder why it’s harder to raise funds to operate local programs. (PATH’s private donation revenue is off by 10%-15%.)

CNN plans to tape the story next week…

LA’s Homeless Blog Makes LA Times “Highly Selective List”

Today’s L.A. Times lists a “highly selective list” of blogs from Los Angeles. The LA’s Homeless Blog made that list. Here's the article.

Here’s what the Times said:

“Finding the jewels among Los Angeles' thousands of blogs can take some doing. This is a highly selective list of some of the more interesting — and regularly updated — blogs.”

Here’s how they described the listing:

L.A.'s Homeless Blog: Downtown-centric "insider perspective" of L.A.'s homeless by an advocate for the homeless. http://www.epath.org/blog

Mayor Villaraigosa To Attend Project Y!MBY Event

We were just informed that Mayor Villaraigosa will be attending the Project Y!MBY Connect Day on December 8th. We were also told that the Mayor will be making an “announcement” on homelessness in Los Angeles. (We don’t know what that will be.)

Project Y!MBY is a grass-roots effort to address homelessness on a local level in the greater Hollywood area. Next week’s Connect Day will bring together community volunteers who will help homeless people connect with services.

We need volunteers for this event. If you would like to volunteer, please visit the website at: www.epath.org/yimby.

ACLU Executive Director Gets A Positive Nod From Council Sub-Committee

After overcoming the first hurdle, ACLU director Ramona Ripston is now headed toward a full L.A. City Council vote. Ripston was nominated by Mayor Villaraigosa to be a commissioner for the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority. The City Council has to approve it.

Today, Ripston was approved by the Council’s Housing, Community, and Economic Development Committee. Councilmembers Garcetti and Reyes voted yes, and Councilmember Parks voted no.

Fellow ACLU associate, Doug Mirell was approved yesterday.

L.A. Supervisors: Stop The “Dumping”!

Yesterday, at the same meeting when they highlighted Project Y!MBY, the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors asked all public agencies and the Sheriff’s Department to report back in 30 days on policies to ensure that homeless patients are not discharged from county-run hospital to the streets. Here's a brief article on this.

The pressure is on for county departments to do their part in developing a better discharge planning process.

Skid Row Peril Makes It On CNN

If you missed last night’s airing, here is the transcript:

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

RANDI KAYE, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): This is Skid Row, a 50 square block human dumping ground in downtown Los Angeles.

CAPT. ANDREW SMITH, LOS ANGELES POLICE DEPT.: Here, let me see your wrist band. Were you in the hospital recently?

KAYE: Still wearing a bracelet from the county jail, this woman Lilly was too strung out to tell how she got here.

SMITH: How long were you in the county jail? KAYE: Because of the abundant social services Skid Row is a magnet for the drug addicted, the mentally ill, the criminals, and the helpless. It's also a magnet for other cities who don't know what to do with their own problems, so they bring them here and dump them.

SMITH: I saw an outside agency dropping off an individual who didn't live in this area who had never been here before and hadn't been arrested in this area down -- actually right down on that corner down there.

KAYE: Two months ago, out on patrol, LAPD Captain Andrew Smith says he saw two L.A. County sheriff's deputies dump this man, Byron Harris, who Smith described as confused.

SMITH: Watched them pull to the curb, open the door and take a handcuffed prison other out, unhandcuff him, hand him a bag of his property and begin to leave, so I of course stopped them and tried to figure out what was going on.

KAYE: Smith says that Harris told him that he had not requested to be dropped downtown. He had been arrested in Long Beach, 25 miles away. But a spokesman for the sheriff told CNN Harris, just released from jail, had requested food and shelter, both available on Skid Row. The deputies did not dump that man or anyone else.

(on camera): Why do you think, if it's indeed happening, other communities are doing this?

SMITH: Well, we have a lot of services, social services, down here. But really, I think it's a way for other cities to get rid of the problems that they have.

KAYE (voice-over): Skid Row services include food, shelter, medicine, even prenatal care. It's a unique setup born from good intentions, but critics like Central City East's executive director, Estella Lopez, now worry the free handouts are leading to dumping.

(on camera): A long time ago they thought that this idea of centralized services was a good thing. Has it turned out to be a good thing?

ESTELLA LOPEZ, CENTRAL CITY EAST: It's turned out to be a nightmare. What it has done -- it's been a good thing for the 88 other cities and the counties of Los Angeles that don't have to deal with problems that come from their own communities. They send them here.

KAYE (voice-over): Which of these people have been dumped or decided to come on their own is unclear. But Estella Lopez and Captain Smith aren't the only ones who have witnessed dumping.

ORLANDO WARD, MIDNIGHT MISSION: How long have you been on the street?

KAYE: Orlando Ward works at Midnight Mission, just a block from where Captain Smith encountered Byron Harris. WARD: I had a guy in our courtyard three days ago, he had a hospital gown on, he had -- the IV was still attached. So, I went and asked him, I said, "How did you get down here?" and he said that the ambulance dropped him off a couple blocks down in front of a mission. I said, "Well, did you go in?" He goes, "Well, they just dropped me off."

KAYE: Ward was once a basketball star at Stanford University. Drugs lured him to the streets of Skid Row. He bottomed out and after two years he got clean. Ward says Skid Row was designed to help people, not dump people.

WARD: It makes me angry when you dump people without attaching them to the services that they really need. If your motive is getting them out of your backyard and dumping them on to somebody else, I have a problem with that.

KAYE: Captain Smith's 145 officers can hardly make headway here. San Julian Street, otherwise known as Heroin Alley, is like a giant block party where everyone brings an illegal drug. This woman propositioned me. Police say it's well known she's a prostitute.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: How much can I get paid for this?

KAYE: She explains she's been on the street since age nine. Why do you live like this?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Because this is a million dollar corporation, it never going to stop.

KAYE: This is Skid Row.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (UNINTELLIGIBLE) Skid Row looks out for Skid Row.

SMITH: How are you doing? How you hanging?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I'm doing OK.

SMITH: Are you?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yeah. I'm hanging on.

KAYE: Captain Smith says police won't stop the problem, so who will? And when, the captain wonders, will other communities start providing services for their needy?

ANTONIO VILLARAIGOSA, L.A. MAYOR: A great city can't be a place where we're leaving so many people behind.

KAYE: Los Angeles mayor Antonio Villaraigosa is investigating. He says the city of Los Angeles has pledged millions to help the chronically homeless, but it's time the federal government step up, too.

VILLARAIGOSA: The only governmental entity with the resources to deal with the structural problems of poverty in the cities is the federal government. The federal government has failed and refused over the last few years to invest in housing, to invest in the urban core in our cities.

KAYE: The same society that's allowing people to live on Skid Row is in some cases transporting them to be forgotten and perhaps to die.

WARD: It's a cultural genocide, we're losing a whole generation or people to this despair and ultimately death.

KAYE: Unlike Byron Harris, countless others may have been dumped here without a witness.

Randi Kaye, CNN, on Skid Row in Los Angeles.

Newest LAHSA Commission Member

The Downtown Central City East Blogger recently reported that ACLU lawyer, Doug Mirell, was approved to be on the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority Commission by the L.A. City Council this morning. The vote was 11 ayes, and 3 no’s.

Here is the info: Central City East Blogger.

L.A. County Board of Supervisors proclaims December 8, 2005 “Project Homeless Connect Day.”

The Board of Supervisors acknowledges the importance of PATH’s Project Y!MBY (Yes! In My Backyard), and its Connect Day. On December 8th, a grass-roots effort to help homeless people connect to services and housing will begin Project Y!MBY.

Here is the official motion approved today.

The goal of Project Y!MBY is to mobilize local communities to address homelessness. If you would like to volunteer on this day, or would like more information on Project Y!MBY visit: Project Y!MBY

Dying To Visit Paris?

It may be getting cold here in Los Angeles, but if you are homeless in Paris you could die. Reuters reports that six people who were homeless have died on the streets of Paris during this current winter season. Here's the article.

No matter what city in the world a homeless person might be residing in, if the weather becomes extreme—heat in Phoenix or cold in Paris—your existence is in jeopardy.

And yet, our "civil" societies still allows this...

When Hospitals—Places of Healing—Send People To Places Of Harm…

She could have been anyone’s mother or grandmother. The taxi driver pulled out her old rickety wheelchair from the trunk, and helped her out of the car. The taxi was parked in front of our PATH Regional Homeless Center at around 5:30 pm, and had departed from one of the local hospitals.

Our mall of social services was closed. But she still rolled her chair to the front door and knocked on the glass. She needed help. She was released from the hospital, and now needed a warm place to stay.

What could our staff do, but let her in and take care of her. She had no other place to go.

Sadly, she is only one of hundreds (maybe even thousands) who are released from hospitals and sent to homeless programs.

And, as we have discovered in the last few months, many are sent to Skid Row. Just this past week, three hospitals acknowledged the practice—Kaiser Permanente West Los Angeles, Hollywood Presbyterian Medical Center, and Martin Luther King Jr./Drew Medical Center. Here's the article.

How can hospitals—that are respected institutions in our community—send people from places of healing to places of harm? It just goes against the values of our community hospitals.

The system of caring for people who are homeless is completely broken.

When law enforcement send people to other communities, when we allow children to live in Skid Row, and when hospitals send people to the roughest neighborhoods in the region, the problem of homelessness becomes more than simply neglect.

It becomes criminal negligence.

Another L.A. City Council Vote Turns Against ACLU

Last Wednesday, the L.A. City Council again voted against ACLU lawyer Doug Mirell to be on the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority commission.

On the Tuesday vote, Mirell was also not able to muster enough votes to be approved.

The hope, for the Mayor’s office, is that Mirell will be approved next week when two new city council members—Wesson and Huizar—join the council.

Let’s see what happens.

Here's the article.