FOOD LINES BOMB AT S.M. CITY HALL


Ordinance war waged against local
hungry and homeless community

By Peggy Lee Kennedy

At its Oct. 22 meeting, the Santa Monica City Council adopted two ordinances that are newsworthy for Venice.

Briefly, these two ordinances are meant to:

1. restrict organizations which regularly provide food in open public places by requiring LA County Health permits and compliance with the Santa Monica City Events Law (enforced by the Santa Monica Police Department); and

2. stop homeless people from sleeping in business doorways in certain areas of the city through the use of Santa Monica City “No Trespassing” signs and then removing, fining, or jailing homeless violators.

The ordinance that gained the greatest amount of news coverage is the one specifying restrictions for the outdoor distribution of food in public parks. A number of the outdoor food programs along with other groups and individuals from the local community came together in front of the Santa Monica City Hall to protest with a signed declaration stating opposition to the outdoor food ordinance.

The greatest danger associated with the implementation of this ordinance is that cutting off even a few meals can cause serious harm during cold weather, because a body needs a certain amount of calories to maintain its temperature. When a person is in poor physical condition (like many of the homeless) and sleeping outside in the cold, s/he can die from not having enough calories.

The ordinance states that persons and groups who wish to give food to needy people in Santa Monica are encouraged to participate in programs which provide meals and food indoors in conjunction with other services. The persons or groups that are providing food are directed to the Department of Community and Cultural Services to obtain information regarding current City programs and the use of city property. Any person who serves or distributes food to the public in City parks or on the City Hall lawn must:

(a) comply with applicable state health and safety standards regulating food service and distribution, including obtaining and displaying a valid permit from the Los Angles County Department of Health which includes City approval as to location; and

(b) comply with all applicable requirements of the City of Santa Monica’s Community Events Law.

The goal of the outdoor food ordinance is to remove the food providers and the homeless from Santa Monica parks in order to create comfortable access for the non-homeless public.

Some of the major drawbacks and issues appear to be:

• No system of enclosed buildings or facilities exists with adequate capacity to replace the quantities of food now provided to the hungry.

• No city or county public social service system exists that could serve the population now being fed.

• It is not responsible to target, restrict, or fine organizations that provide these outdoor services without alternative solutions.

• LA County does not require health permits for these services.

• The permits all take time, cost money, and are ultimately subject to Santa Monica City approval, while the outdoor food providers are volunteers working above and beyond their roles as business owners, employees, students, parents, and spiritual ministers.

The outdoor food providers give food and personal items, such as toiletries or blankets to hungry and homeless people. More hungry and homeless people can be served in open public places than can be served in enclosed buildings restricted by fire codes capacities. A typical food line can provide 100-200 meals (a sack lunch or a hot dinner) at one mealtime.

At the Oct. 8 meeting, a council member referred to the Daybreak Day Center as an enclosed alternative, which provides food and social services to homeless women who may suffer from mental illness. Daybreak Day Center can only feed 25 women a day. It does not serve the same women on the following day unless there is a special need such as pregnancy. And the social services to which Daybreak is linked cannot provide shelter or transitional living referral even for that small population, due to limited shelter space and availability of social services.

Much to their credit, Santa Monica’s Mayor Mike Feinstein and Mayor Pro Tempore Kevin McKeown were adamantly opposed to passing this ordinance without alternative solutions in place. Unfortunately, their speeches did not sway the other five council members at the council’s second reading and final passing of the ordinance on Oct. 22.

Council Member Ken Genser said that the food ordinance is “good for both the residents and the homeless,” implying that homeless are not residents. Certain council members during both meetings used language separating homeless people from the rest of the community.

Council Member Herb Katz spoke out against the media for treating this ordinance as if the city and its council members meant to hurt homeless people. He said that the ordinance is really trying to force the food providers to conform to health standards. Council Member Richard Bloom said that the people feeding homeless should work with existing city-funded programs.

Venice resident Moira La Mountain, from HOPE (Helping Other People Eat), stated "The decision by the City Council was a great disappointment, but of no surprise.  If health and human welfare were really the driving force behind the Council's decision, the City of Santa Monica would have had a very different conversation, and there would be a meaningful transition plan in place.” La Mountain felt that even though the City may be in compassion burnout, they should not be throwing in the towel when more resources are on the horizon.

Some of these resources include:

• Proposition 36 (a substance abuse and crime prevention act) has just begun to unburden shelter services by providing assistance to non-violent drug offenders who chronically cycle between the streets, the shelters and the penal system.

• The Los Angeles Coalition to End Hunger and Homelessness is currently co-chairing a strategic planning process in partnership with the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority (LAHSA) and a large number of community stakeholders to develop a comprehensive plan to end homelessness in the next decade in Los Angeles City and County.

• Proposition 46 (if passed on November’s ballot) will directly improve both affordable housing and transitional housing by providing $2.1 billion in bond money for affordable housing in the state, including $910 million for the construction of rental housing, and $300 million for shelters and housing with support services for homeless people.

Outdoor Food Programs also serve the hungry who are not homeless, such as elderly and low-income people. The Los Angeles Regional Food Bank’s 2001 study on hunger in Los Angeles stated that 29.4 percent of all households that seek food assistance include at least one adult that works. Low-income people often count on food programs, because they cannot afford both food and rent in Santa Monica and Venice. Homeless people have even more serious food needs, especially with the onset of cold weather.

The other anti-homeless ordinance passed unanimously. It restricts sitting or lying in doorways in the downtown and Main Street areas between 11pm and 7am. Violators may be removed, fined, or arrested under the new city trespassing laws.

The ordinance states that homeless people sleeping in doorways create a health hazard by urinating and defecating in the very same business doorways where they sleep. It is very hard to stay clean and warm while living on the street. Access to showers and clean clothing can be limited. Clearly, someone living in and wearing her or his own excrement needs help, not a city ordinance.

Some members of Side-By-Side, a homeless forum that meets every Wednesday at the Ken Edwards Center in Santa Monica, have done an informal survey on the excrement situation in Santa Monica. They found that much of the defecation and urination is from patrons of bars or liquor stores (some driving expensive automobiles) or people who do not clean up after their dogs. These members of Side-By-Side take the position that the excrement issue is simply another way to use language dehumanizing homeless people when there are not enough public toilets. The continued association of excrement with homeless people is a technique used to influence the public against the homeless community.

Santa Monica’s Police Chief James Butts quoted a statistic of unknown origin that one out of three urgent police responses in Santa Monica were related to homelessness. When Mayor Pro Tempore McKeown questioned him regarding the possibility that mental illness may be affecting this statistic, Butts said that most of the homeless were “straight-up criminals.”

Chief Butts’ “straight-up criminal” comment illustrates a common attitude toward the homeless. Most homeless people just need care and shelter. Instead public officials create laws and ordinances aimed at criminalizing the homeless.

La Mountain reacted to Chief Butts’ statistics, saying “if a fraction of what is spent on these police responses to the homeless were redirected to licensed emergency case workers available 24 hours, we would begin to have an opportunity to get at some of the root causes of homelessness and the dollars spent would be much more productive.”

Targeting outdoor food providers is an attempt to get rid of Santa Monica’s visible homeless public. These ordinances will serve to further dehumanize and criminalize our homeless residents and they give the police tools to act as legal City agents for removing the organizations currently helping poor and hungry people in public parks. There aren’t enough operational city resources dedicated to actual problem solving between the city and its homeless public.

According to a 1999 survey commissioned by the City of Santa Monica and conducted by the Economic Roundtable, 1,037 people were homeless each day in Santa Monica. Shelter Partnership, Inc.'s most recent study found that there are as many as 84,000 people homeless each night in Los Angeles County. Of this population, 9,000 are children. Homelessness is growing due to the increase in poverty, joblessness, increasing job insecurity, the lack of affordable housing, increasing family instability, and the decrease in the availability of social services. 

Poverty, hunger, and homelessness are a national shame. Just as welfare reform has punished poor single women with children for not getting a job when employment opportunities are declining, these two Santa Monica City ordinances are part of an American trend to punish the poor for being poor.

One recent day in Venice, even the beautiful movie star Renee Rousseau found a former colleague in the food line. It is far too easy to become hungry or homeless in our nation if you are sick, a single mother, a veteran, or working-class. We need to join together to help, not pass laws against hungry and homeless people.

Let’s dedicate ourselves to the notion that no person in our nation should go hungry, be homeless, or be sick and die on our streets. Together, as a community, we need to focus on real solutions such as advocacy for people suffering with mental health problems, non-profit transitional living centers that employ the services of our community’s homeless public, affordable west-side housing, guaranteed living wages, progressive social programs, and quality healthcare.

Until we are able to eradicate hunger and homelessness – long live the food lines!

Posted: Fri - November 1, 2002 at 06:55 PM          

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