San Pedro NCs Petition to Use Vacant Port Property for Homeless

By Hunter Chase, Community News Reporter

Two neighborhood councils in San Pedro have asked the Port of Los Angeles to use two of its parking lots — about four acres, total — as a campsite for homeless people. The port says it is not interested, citing the lots’ proximity to contaminated land and their current uses in the construction of the West Harbor project and for overflow business parking.

Under a plan proposed by the Central San Pedro Neighborhood Council and the Coastal San Pedro Neighborhood Council in separate votes taken one month apart, lots E and F, located near 22nd St., would be used  as living space for homeless people for three or four years, while the West Harbor development project is being built.

On Jan. 19, Central San Pedro NC approved the plan, 7-3, with one abstention. The no votes came from Linda Alexander, Eugenia Bulanova and Matthew Quiocho. President Carrie Scoville abstained. On Feb. 16, Coastal San Pedro NC registered its approval, 9-0, although five members abstained — President Doug Epperhart and board members Isiah Cade, Erika Hernandez, Kavitha Muthuswamy and Shannon Ross.

Neighborhood activist James Campeau had reached out to the port about the idea in November 2020.

“I just had [it] in mind for all the people that are on the sidewalks in San Pedro and on Gulch Road, on the side of the hill, sliding down in the mud in the rain, to … have a safe, level place,” Campeau said.

Campeau said the lots have trees and shade and are fairly secluded.

“They’re not in the firing line of … people driving by and cursing them out,” Campeau said. “I think it would be a dignified place, you know, in the interim that they find something else.

However, at the March 4 meeting of the Board of Harbor Commissioners, Gene Seroka, executive director of the Port of Los Angeles, said the lots are close to a Superfund site, the GATX Annex Terminal, which is an area that needs long-term work to eliminate the contamination of hazardous material.

“When we began discussions with Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti and this Harbor Commission on what we could do to assist those folks who are experiencing homelessness, the last thing we wanted was to put any human being in danger of polluted sites, and that’s what this is,” Seroka said.

In addition, he said the lots are currently being used as a laydown area for the ongoing construction of the West Harbor project, meaning that construction materials are temporarily stored there. They are also intended to be used for overflow parking for nearby businesses.

Seroka said that the City of Los Angeles has already committed two nearby properties to help homeless people — one is the Bridge Home shelter in San Pedro, and the other is the Bridge Home shelter in Wilmington.

“Unfortunately, those two facilities are underutilized today,” Seroka said. “Let’s get folks who need housing into those facilities first, before we start talking about other difficult properties to convert, and time that these people don’t have.”

Campeau argued that there was no overflow parking currently, and if there were, Sampson Way was closer to West Harbor, and has adequate parking available. In addition, the lots are currently used as a park about 75 feet away from the GATX Annex Terminal, and the park has never been identified as an environmental hazardous zone.

“Mr. Seroka’s public safety concerns for not allowing the use of Lots E and F, despite their use by the general public for a number of years, doesn’t make sense,” Campeau said in an email to Seroka and the harbor commissioners.

Campeau said that use of the lots could help homeless people who could not pass background checks to get into permanent housing or bridge homes.

“I can’t find another area that is close enough that would work,” Campeau said. “The port is just, you know, throwing any cog in the wheel they can to not cooperate.”

Campeau said he would like to see the port contribute its fair share to helping homeless people.

“You can’t send them … way too far away, they have to be part of our community,” Campeau said.

Coastal board member Kavitha Muthuswamy argued that this shouldn’t just be an excuse to get homeless people out of public spaces, as they have a right to be there.

“If the true intent, as many people have stated, is to provide a place where people can be clean and you know, go to the bathroom and relieve themselves, then fine, leave that open,” Muthuswamy said. “But it doesn’t mean that we need to get them out of our sight in other places.”

The site could have wraparound services if it had city or county funding. But even if it didn’t, it would still have trash cans and portable toilets, both of which are inexpensive.

Central board member Linda Alexander said using the lots to help homeless people could lead to lost revenue for the port.

“I’m not opposed to this, I just wanted to point out that those lots are often used for … base camps, which would generate money for the port,” Alexander said. “I don’t know how much money they make, but … it may be their excuse to not do this.”

Coastal board member Shannon Ross said this property might be under the California Tidelands Trust act, which would prevent it from being used as a site for homeless people.

“I’m not sure that this property would be eligible for this type of … homeless facility,” Ross said. “I don’t think the port is going to do anything with that property for a very long time, as we know, we watched them tear down the Ports O’Call village and it’s just been sitting there.”

However, Calif. State Controller Betty Yee, who sits on the State Lands Commission, recently corresponded with this newspaper saying that “they were reviewing the Trust Doctrine in light of changing values.”

But Campeau wants to use the lots because they represent immediate solutions. While the city has built homeless shelters, they take time to develop.

“Meanwhile, every night, these people are on [the] sidewalk, out in the weather,” Campeau said. “Bridge Home is great, all these people that work to get permanent housing is great, but it doesn’t happen fast enough.”