Controversial Videotape Latest Weapon in Fight Against Shelter

By Oliver Lukacs and Jorge Casuso
Staff Writer

July 31 -- White letters on a black screen: “NEIGHBORHOOD ALERT. We have only DAYS to stop SKID ROW from coming to our neighborhood,” begins the new “public service announcement” video produced by the Pico Neighborhood Association.

Cut to a mother sitting on the sun-lit grass of a local park blocks from a proposed new homeless shelter, hugging one of four smiling blond-haired children surrounding her.

“From what I’ve heard, they’re going to be feeding over 200 people a day with only 55 beds. After they close their doors, where are the people that they couldn’t help going to go?”

The confrontational, professionally crafted seven-minute video is the newest weapon in an escalating war waged by Pico Neighborhood residents against a proposed two-story homeless services shelter at Cloverfield Boulevard and Michigan Avenue, a war that so far has included street rallies, pickets and testimony at public meetings.

The video, of which 400 copies have been made, has had an impact since it was released Wednesday, said PNA co-chair Peter Tigler. The novelty of using video, as opposed to simply handing out flyers, is drawing attention to an issue the City has tried to keep under the public radar, he said.

"There's an urgency to it," said Tigler. "The City's trying to rush (the facility) through so people don't know about it. The video helps get the word out that this is happening. It makes the point. It tells people what's going on. This is effective. It makes people look."

But Mayor Richard Bloom, one of numerous City officials who received a copy, gave the video a strong thumbs down, calling it "sleazy," "garbage" and "offensive." The video, he said, is a personal attack on John Maceri, executive director of the Ocean Park Community Center, which would own and operate the $7 million, 33,000-square-foot facility.

"I think the whole thing is sleazy," Bloom said. "I understand the issues posed, and I have not come to a conclusion on where I stand on this proposal. This videotape amounts to a personal attack on an individual who I believe is beyond reproach.

"The shabby and unfair manner in which they bully him in this video is an embarrassment to this community," Bloom said. "You should be able to have a respectful dialogue about important issues, and this type of garbage has no place in the dialogue. The way they're doing it is offensive."

Bloom questions whether the video received the support of the PNA board. "Did the PNA review this and approve it?" Bloom asked. "It's got their name on it."

Tigler said the board voted on the general direction of the campaign and not on the video itself.

"The overall vote was on getting the message out, and we all knew there would be a video as part of that," Tigler said. "A number of us saw it and everybody was saying, 'yeah go for it.' Everybody was excited about it."

The video provides a tour of the neighborhood around the proposed site, which would replace the current facility at Seventh Street and Colorado Avenue that must move to make way for the expansion of the bus yard. The facility would add 35 beds to the current 20, serving as the second home of OPCC's Access Center and Daybreak Shelter programs and catering to needs of more than 200 homeless daily.

“What’s the problem you ask?” says an impeccably dressed Black man identified only as “a concerned citizen,” as he looks into the camera with the proposed site tightly cropped in the background. “Well it’s simple.

“See, a homeless shelter of this magnitude will have a severe impact on your children coming home from school, your home, community parks, local businesses and our way of life... The long term effects go far beyond the property lines of this facility.”

The "citizen" -- who PNA members told The Lookout is a “volunteer” actor who doesn’t live in Santa Monica -- guides the viewer through the neighborhood around the site to refute what OPCC's Maceri “will lead you to believe.”

The “untruths” the video attempts to “dispel” are encapsulated by an excerpt from a Lookout article about the shelter quoted in the opening prelude, said Wes Terry, whose group Citizens for a Safer Santa Monica (formed in response to the project) co-produced the video.

“Known to attract loitering homeless, the shelter -- which must be moved to make way for an expansion of the City bus yards -- will be far away enough from residences to pose no threat or inconvenience, agency officials said,” according to the article quoted.

In a grave tone of voice, the guide warns that the proposed project will “effect you emotionally, financially, and the rest of your life.” It then cuts to a homeless man passed out in a dingy garage near the old 7th Street shelter site, “the largest homeless shelter in the City of Santa Monica, if not the County. ”

In one of a series of snipes at OPPC's director, the citizen says sardonically, “John Maceri will lead you to believe that the shelter is not a block away from residential areas. Well, you’re right John, it’s only a half a block.” He then walks off Cloverfield Boulevard into the neighborhood straddling the south side of the 10 Freeway.

“Oh by the way,” says the guide near the end of the tour, “the OPCC says they serve the homeless, drug addicts, alcoholics and the mentally ill. The building holds 55 beds, but they say they serve 200 to 300 people a day -- so when the doors close, just where do you think the rest of the 245 will go?”

Maceri, who received one of the copies, said the video perpetuates a hysteria about homeless shelters.

“They want to characterize it as that every day at 5 p.m. we close the doors and we dump 200 people into the street who go wandering into the neighborhood," Maceri said. "The notion that it’s going to destroy property values and endanger little kids, this kind of hysteria is just not true.”

“It’s not going to be this apocalyptic perilous thing that’s going to destroy the neighborhood,” said Maceri.

While he admits that 200 to 300 people would be served on a daily basis, Maceri pointed out that the clients circulate throughout the day, so there wouldn’t be 300 people at the site simultaneously.

“What everyone wants to hear me say is ‘don’t worry, there will never be a homeless person who won't have a place to stay, but I am not going to say that. We would like to say when we close we hope all the people will find shelter, but that’s not the case.”

Maceri added that because the 33,000-square-foot site will be larger on the inside than the 7th Street facility and will have a walled-off courtyard outside, there won't be the throngs of homeless who commonly loiter on the street at the current site.

“I am not in denial about impact," Maceri said. "There is no place in the City that any kind of service will have no impact. I’ve never said that publicly or privately… We believe that the impact can be managed. I think the impact will be minimal.”

But the guide in the video disagrees, and a growing group of residents agree with the guide. Along with PNA and CSSM, Mothers For Justice, Santa Monica Tax Watch and other neighborhood groups either support the video’s viewpoint or donated to its making, according to Tigler and CSSM member Terry.

Admitting that CSSM is a handful of people from different Pico Neighborhood condominium associations, Terry described the movement as “a small group of concerned citizens who are growing daily.”

“As soon as people are enlightened to the circumstances,” Terry said, “almost half join or get active.” The woman in the opening scene for instance, “was completely unscripted,” and just volunteered her support after learning of the purpose behind the video, he said.

Tigler said PNA has roughly 300 members, accounting for less then 10 percent of the Pico Neighborhood’s residents, but Tigler added that all the businesses in the corridor he had contacted “know about the project and they're not happy about it.”

After informing the viewer of the numerous social service facilities already located in the Pico Neighborhood -- which has the largest concentration of such facilities in the City -- the guide assumes a sympathetic tone:

“We understand and we applaud the City’s efforts -- their hearts are in the right place, unfortunately the potential new location is not.”

“We just feel there are better alternatives” than the proposed site on a business corridor where “millions of dollars have already been introduced to rebuild and refurbish -- things like MTV, the Water Gardens, MGM, the Bergamot Art District, and even your local neighborhood grocery store, Ralphs, which is across the street.”

Contrary to Maceri's contentions, the guide says, the proposed site is "around the corner” from Edison Elementary School, “only a block away from your neighborhood park” and “just a few blocks from Santa Monica College.”

Standing in front of a picture perfect red-brick house with impeccably trimmed hedges, the guide concludes the tour by saying, “and it’s only a step away from your front door.”

Standing back at the park where the mother was, with children laughing and playing in the background, the guide concludes with a question for Mayor Bloom.

“I just have one question for you Mr. Mayor."

The video cuts to a tracking shot of homeless people loitering on skid row in Downtown Los Angeles, then seamlessly transitions to a similar scene outside the 7th Street shelter. "Is this the future of Santa Monica?”