If You Have a Hammer, Every Problem Begins to Look Like a Nail

By James Preston Allen, Publisher

Our fertile subconscious minds conjure up curious images to deal with unresolved conflicts. A friend of mine once recounted waking from a dream in which she collected all the hammers in her house before going to bed so as to protect herself from burglars breaking in during the night. I sometimes think our city leaders have the very same dream and solve problems the same way.

The Los Angeles City Council has a toolbox full of hammers to address the city’s multitude of problems. Nowhere is this more evident than how it chose to solve the growing number of homeless encampments this past week when it reduced the amount of advanced notice authorities have to give before removing personal possessions of the homeless.

The number of people without shelter in Los Angeles County rose by 12 percent over the past two years to 44,359. Somewhere close to half of those reside in the City of Los Angeles. And, about 300 of those reside in San Pedro.

The cities of Los Angeles and Long Beach both have 19 laws on the books targeting the homeless. In their wisdom the city councils have made it illegal for both the rich and the poor to sleep in public parks or anywhere else outdoors.

Overall, there are some 200 laws and local ordinances criminalizing homelessness in California. The state legislature passed a new version of Penal Code Section 647(E), a misdemeanor charge for sleeping inside of buildings, public or private without permission. This anti-lodging law was made harsher when the penalties were increased to a year in jail and a $2,000 fine if caught doing it twice—as if a homeless person could afford to pay this.

All of this hammering on the poor seems crazy in light of the barrage of stories published by Los Angeles Magazine expounding on the idea that Los Angeles is on the verge. There are billion-dollar hotels going up near LA Live; there are competing NFL stadium proposals in Carson and Inglewood; a billion-dollar restoration effort of the Los Angeles River; and at every new Metro light rail station new market-rate housing is being erected.

Yes, Los Angeles is on the verge of becoming divided and unaffordable for working class Angelenos. All while real estate prices soar and foreign capital builds yet another skyscraper hotel.

Recently the California Supreme Court ruled that San Jose could impose its affordable housing zoning codes on new developments. For Los Angeles, this is a nail worth pounding—staunching the loss of affordable working class housing as previously low-income neighborhoods become gentrified. This should be an immediate priority for the city council to hammer down before passing any more ordinances outlawing sleeping on park benches. In other words, how about providing some lumber in which to hammer those nails.

This, of course, is not our city’s only dysfunction. In in the words of departing Deputy City Mayor Rick Cole, “[The city] is designed not to work.” That Los Angeles annually spends $100 million on the homeless—$80 million on just policing—is an astounding figure and one of the prime examples of how Los Angeles is designed not to work.

If Mayor Eric Garcetti and the city council aim to make Los Angeles the sustainable city of the future, then investing some of this $100 million into permanent housing for the homeless must be made as high a priority as the efforts to make the LA River look pretty again.

In the meantime, the city cannot arrest its way or evict its way out of the growing problem of homelessness. Let’s find some vacant property where we can set up some bathrooms and showers, provide social services, and let them camp out in peace.

Whatever happened to Ted Hayes Jr.’s Dome Village concept for housing the homeless?

On Aug. 31, 2006, Hayes announced that the residents of Dome Village were being evicted and that domes would be auctioned off online. Residents were given until that October to get out and move into traditional homeless shelters. At the time, they hoped to recreate Dome Village elsewhere in Los Angeles with the proceeds from the auction. Perhaps it’s time to build a few more domes?