Most days Kyle Contarino, homeless and living in Westwood, picks
up the Daily Bruin Sports section and imagines what could have
been.
“I dropped out of high school. I think about it every day.
I was stupid because I was good at basketball,” said the
32-year-old, bundled up outside the Jews for Jesus center on Le
Conte Avenue on Sunday night. “I’m just a quitter.
That’s why I’m homeless.”
Since moving to Westwood several months ago, Contarino says he
mostly keeps to himself.
Still, up until last week, police could have arrested the man
because he was in violation of a city municipal ordinance against
sitting, lying or sleeping on public sidewalks.
The Los Angeles law ““ considered by many as one of the
nation’s most restrictive ordinances against the homeless
““ was revoked last Friday, when the San Francisco appeals
court ruled that the restriction amounts to cruel and unusual
punishment, since there are more homeless people in Los Angeles
than there are shelter beds.
Contarino, like many others who live on the streets in Westwood,
welcomed the long-awaited ruling.
“Homeless people aren’t doing anything wrong.
They’re not the reason the world is screwed up,” he
said.
Even if there were enough shelter beds for the city’s
roughly 80,000 homeless people, many of Westwood’s homeless
say they would still rather live on the streets.
Skip, a 65-year-old wheelchair-bound homeless man, stays away
from shelters because he fears employees would force him to go to a
hospital.
Skip’s toes are gnarled and a few of his toenails have
been rubbed raw from being dragged shoeless along the sidewalk.
He said he’s scared to get help because he thinks the beds
at medical wards are stuffed with human hearts.
Psychotic fears like Skip’s are common among homeless
people, roughly a third of whom suffer from mental illness,
according to a 2003 Los Angeles Department of Mental Health
Study.
This keeps some of the city’s homeless population from
seeking help even when help is available, said Tod Lipka, director
of Step Up on Second, a nonprofit organization that helps mentally
ill homeless people reintegrate into society.
“There’s a certain level of freedom that comes with
living on the street even though it’s a difficult
lifestyle,” Lipka said, adding that some mentally ill
homeless people seek help despite their psychosis.
Others stay on the streets because they can’t find any
motivation not to.
“My heart’s not in anything anymore. A lot of
homeless people give up on life,” Contarino said.
Though Contarino has made an effort recently to receive
unemployment and disability payments, he said it is difficult for
him to do much else to get his life back on track.
Without the conveniences that come with a place to stay ““
a toilet, a shower, a washer and dryer ““ he said cleaning up
and looking good for a job is too overwhelming.
“People take things for granted. If I ever have a washer
and dryer, I’m going to love that thing,” Contarino
said.
While the appeals court ruling could affect Westwood’s
homeless population, its impact is expected to be felt most on Skid
Row, a 50-block downtown district home to roughly 11,000 homeless
people nightly.
Law enforcement officials, who were readying plans to
aggressively clean up the cardboard encampments before the ruling,
will now be forced to opt for a less stringent approach.
Experts expect a new plan that would allow the cardboard
encampments to remain, while cracking down on the violence, drug
sales and prostitution within them.
Before moving to Westwood, Contarino spent two weeks on Skid
Row.
“It’s too dangerous, it’s too
depressing,” he said.
Tim Wafchild has called the streets of Westwood home for nearly
20 years, but he said he has stayed on Skid Row too.
Wafchild is missing most of his teeth and the bags under his
eyes sag loosely against his sunken cheekbones ““ he said he
used to be addicted to methamphetamine.
“I’m an old Hollywood tweaker, but I don’t
shoot up no more,” he said, sitting outside of Jose Bernstein
Sunday night.
Anywhere from one-third to two-thirds of Los Angeles’
homeless are substance abusers, according to a 2004 study by the
Institute for the Study of Homelessness and Poverty at the Weingart
Center.
Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, who has said he wants to clean up
drug use and crime on Skid Row without forcing transients from
their cardboard encampments, welcomed last week’s ruling.
The city’s crackdown will target “the predators who
are preying on the homeless, whether they are selling drugs,
prostitution, whatever it is,” Villaraigosa told the Los
Angeles Times.