LOS ANGELES (CN) — A number of nonprofits that provide services for those experiencing poverty and homelessness want the Los Angeles City Council to pause enforcement of a law that allows council members to ban certain encampments, citing the Omicron surge.
In the last two days, the United Way of Greater Los Angeles, Bet Tzedek, the Downtown Women's Center, Venice Catholic Worker and Public Counsel have all called for a 60-day moratorium on the encampment removals, which are done under LA Municipal Code 41.18, an ordinance that took effect this past September.
"Enforcing 41.18 right now is cruel and endangers the lives of people already living at the margins," Amy Tennenbaum, an attorney with Public Counsel, told the City Council's homelessness and poverty committee Thursday. And Hana Kommel, an attorney with Bet Tzedek, told the committee: "Pushing unhoused individuals toward congregant living could literally lead to their death."
Two City Council members — Mike Bonin and Nithya Raman — support the moratorium. So does Mayor Eric Garcetti, who has largely stayed away from the debate over 41.18.
“Mayor Garcetti supports pausing enforcement during the current surge in cases unless non-congregate beds are available," his spokesman Harrison Wollman said in a statement.
Last week, there were 918 confirmed Covid cases among the unhoused in LA. According to Bonin, there have been Covid outbreaks at 207 homeless facilities.
"The omicron variant has caused the single highest infection rate amongst unhoused residents since Covid began," said Stephanie Klasky-Gamer, president of LA Family Housing, which provides housing, services and outreach to the homeless. She said that all of her organization's "congregant sites" — that is, shelters where people live together — are on quarantine, meaning that they are not accepting new residents.
"Pushing people into congregant shelter is particularly perilous and against the CDC's guidelines," said Bonin, who pointed out that in 2020, the City Council paused all homeless encampment cleanup and allowed the unhoused to "shelter in place" to contain the spread of Covid. That effort largely succeeded: Despite fears that the pandemic would decimate the homeless population, only 273 of the city's tens of thousands of unhoused people have died of Covid.
But the number and size of homeless encampments exploded during the first year of the pandemic, angering many Angelenos. Parks like Echo Park and MacArthur Park were inundated with tents and makeshift shelters. City Council member Joe Buscaino, who is running for mayor, proposed an outright ban on all encampments, so long as there were enough empty shelter beds to temporarily house the displaced people. Buscaino's colleagues resisted that proposal — which Buscaino now plans to push as a ballot measure — and instead offered a sort of compromise, masterminded by Mark Ridley-Thomas, who has since been indicted for bribery and suspended from the council.
The compromise was 41.18, which gives each council member the right to ban camping at specific locations within their own district. The sites must be near certain things like schools, parks, libraries, freeway overpasses, homeless shelters and business entrances. The city must post signs near the banned locations, giving those living there 15 days of notice. And the locations must be approved by a majority of City Council.
After that, the encampments can be cleared — but again, with a caveat: no one can be ticketed or arrested unless they've first been met by outreach workers and offered temporary housing, which includes not just homeless shelters but an array of other options, including "tiny homes" and converted motels, where people can be sheltered in private rooms with doors that lock.
So far, no one has been arrested or even ticketed under 41.18. A number of homeless people have been asked, or perhaps convinced, to leave their encampments. But implementation of the law has been hodgepodge, leading to an odd, patchwork policy. Two council members — Bonin and Raman — have declined to use 41.18 and have voted against their colleagues' use of the law. Others have registered dozens of locations as places where camping is banned. But it's unclear where the law has actually been enforced.
During Wednesday's full City Council meeting and in response to calls for a moratorium, two council members — Paul Koretz and Kevin de Leon — said they were pausing enforcement of 41.18 for a few weeks. Others, like Buscaino, appear to be barreling ahead with their plans to ban encampments in more and more locations.
"I still feel we’re not moving quickly enough," Buscaino said Wednesday. "This process is slow and bureaucratic."
In an interview, council member Raman said the patchwork approach isn't working.
"We have 15 different paths to address homelessness in LA," Raman said. "Those are 15 paths that do not lead to any kind of coherent response in the city." Raman has said she supports a more centralized approach, perhaps one directed by the mayor. But Garcetti, who is awaiting confirmation as ambassador to India, has said in the past he supports 41.18, and that he "understands that each council district has their own unique challenges and solutions."
Klasky-Gamer of LA Family Housing agrees with Raman that the city needs a more consistent strategy. "The approach where each council member has their own authority or discretion to implement 41.18 disrupts our regional approach to addressing homelessness in Los Angeles," she said.
Follow @hillelaron
Subscribe to Closing Arguments
Sign up for new weekly newsletter Closing Arguments to get the latest about ongoing trials, major litigation and hot cases and rulings in courthouses around the U.S. and the world.
Additional Reads
-
California legislative committee approves deepfake bill April 23, 2024 -
