LA
Officials Derail Plan to Bus Homeless to Winter Shelters |
Lookout Staff
November 28 – The Los Angeles Homeless Services
Authority (LAHSA) has nixed a plan backed by Westside cities and
social service agencies that would have allowed Santa Monica’s
homeless to stay 14 consecutive days in winter shelters, rather
than one night at a time.
The City had come up with the pilot plan after residents and businesses
near the pick-up and drop-off site at the OPCC Access Center on
5th Street and Olympic Boulevard complained of “disruption,”
City officials said.
Instead, the homeless will now have to travel more than two miles
from the only Santa Monica access center in order to take the charter
ride required to enter one of the two Westside winter shelters that
open Monday.
And they will have to do it every day, since the shelters operate
on a first-come basis and turn away walk-ins who do not arrive on
the chartered bus.
“LAHSA rejected the pilot approach, determining that it did
not meet their criteria for daily first-come first-served entrance
to the shelters,” Julie Rusk, who is in charge of Santa Monica’s
homeless programs, said in a statement.
“Therefore, there will not be a pick-up and drop-off location
in Santa Monica,” Rusk said.
The City’s “pilot approach for a smaller, better managed
pick-up location in Santa Monica. . . would have transported a defined
number of individuals (approximately 40) engaged in Santa Monica
homeless services,” according to Rusk.
The proposed pilot plan was intended to address “public safety
concerns and operational issues” at the OPCC pick-up and drop-off
site and “ensure that people who are chronically homeless,
vulnerable and linked to services in Santa Monica have access to
shelter,” Rusk said.
The plan also allowed local service providers and the Santa Monica
Police Department to ensure that in emergencies people who needed
access to the shelter could also be served, Rusk said.
Representatives from cities of Santa Monica, Los Angeles, Culver
City, West Hollywood and Beverly Hills, the Westside Shelter and
Hunger Coalition, the Westside Council of Governments and other
interested parties worked for more than six months “to identify
pick-up and drop-off locations and develop operational policies,”
Rusk said.
Instead of being bused from the center, the homeless will now need
to take public transportation to a pick-up spot at the Westminster
Off-Leash Dog Park in Venice or at the intersection of Santa Monica
and Sawtelle boulevards in West L.A.
Each of the sites is about a mile and a half from OPCC, according
to City officials.
The two Westside winter shelter sites at the Culver City and West
LA armories will open on December 1 and operate through March 15,
adding 300 emergency shelter beds to the Westside.
The two shelters are part of a countywide 2008-09 Winter Shelter
program funded by LAHSA that increases the number of emergency shelter
beds by approximately 1,700 beds at 13 locations throughout the
City & County.
“The Winter Shelter Program protects those without a place
to live by providing extra transportation, shelter and food during
our coldest and wettest months,” said Rebecca Isaacs, executive
director of LAHSA.
“The additional 1,700 beds supplement the 4,440 emergency
shelter beds offered by service providers on an ongoing basis throughout
the year,” Isaacs said
For more information about the 2008-09 Winter Shelter Program,
please visit www.lahsa.org
or call (213) 683.3333.
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