Official discussions about how to feed the needy have begun
Food distributors for the homeless and social service providers are hammering out an agreement that would link their programs. Two meetings have taken place between the two groups, with city officials present.
Representatives of these groups said they hope to talk again before the next city council meeting on Oct. 8, when council members are expected to approve the city’s annual homeless services review and enact two ordinances designed to erect barriers to sleeping in private doorways downtown and holding public meal programs in city parks.
“There’s a real willingness to exploring and connecting food services with social services,” said Joel Schwartz, the city’s homeless service director. “We need to take the next step to see what is possible and what is realistic.”
“There’s a real willingness to exploring and connecting food services with social services.” — — JOEL SCHWARTZ City homeless service director
John Maceri, director of the Ocean Park Community Center, said no decisions have been made.
“We wanted to allow them to continue what they do, but also allow people the mechanism to provide services on site,” he said, adding OPCC would not make participation in its job training or counseling services mandatory to those who showed up to receive a free meal.
Food distributors from Helping Other People Eat, or HOPE, and Loyola-Marymount University have been actively participating in the meetings with city officials.
Russell Calleros, the campus minister with Loyola- Marymount, said he would include OPCC pamphlets at his food distribution programs that detail social services available to the downtrodden.
Calleros is optimistic an agreement can be worked out.
“I think there is a way of working with OPCC,” he said. “How we develop that role is still to be determined.”
In its annual review of homeless services, city staff asked that the food distribution programs be moved inside and voluntarily link with social services designed to lift the homeless off the streets.
And, by city council order, staff also wrote an ordinance that would require food distributors to receive a permit from the Los Angeles County Department of Health to hold their programs outdoors. The event organizers would also be required to follow city laws, which require a permit for groups of more than 150 people.
The annual review and the ordinances will be debated at a city council meeting in two weeks.
Some homeless activists have said the ordinances would ban the 20 to 30 weekly public meal programs and attempt to usurp state trespassing laws. They believe the ordinances are unconstitutional, and some say if they are enacted, a legal challenge is likely.
However, moving the food distributors indoors, where they can work with social service providers, is not a new idea. The concept was first broached in a 1991 report written by a task force on homelessness.
But when the city adopted an ordinance in 1993 prohibiting the programs in public parks, the law was quickly struck down in court as being vague and violating the meal program administrators’ constitutional rights.
While food program administrators agree moving the food lines indoors would be more humane, they say none of the social service providers have enough room to hold the large numbers of people they serve.
“I’d like to see them join us side by side at the parks,” Calleros said. “I think they will get a more positive experience that way than trying to get the homeless to take advantage of services at the site.”
And others say while the food programs are offered every day, many social service providers close during the weekends and on holidays.
It’s a situation that city officials know is a problem.
“Homeless people don’t stop eating on Friday at 5 (p.m.) and resume eating on Monday at 9 (a.m.), but unfortunately that’s how our service system works,” Schwartz said. “There’s really not much in the way of entry into the system on the weekend, but we’re adding some emergency beds to fill some weekend gaps.”
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on September 30, 2002. Read the original PDF.