Though Los Angeles police have begun cracking down on transients
sleeping on sidewalks in the city, university police said they have
no plans to do the same on campus.
Nancy Greenstein, director of police community services at UCPD,
said police will likely leave homeless people on campus alone
unless they create a disturbance.
“It’s situational,” she said of
officers’ enforcement. “If (transients) are obeying the
law, they can be here. If they are causing a disruption, then we
encourage people to call, and we will respond.”
Greenstein said that because UCLA’s campus is public
property, anyone can come to and stay on campus, so long as they
are not breaking any laws.
In contrast, private schools generally have the right to remove
anyone from their campuses at any time, because the grounds are not
publicly owned.
Still, Greenstein said UCPD does sometimes receive complaints
from the UCLA community about transients on and around campus.
Krista Fukuyama, a third-year history student, said she
remembered seeing one transient sleeping on a bench in North Campus
recently, but she said she was not particularly bothered.
“Unless they start bothering you, I don’t really
have a problem with it,” she said.
But LAPD officers recently started stringently enforcing a city
ordinance prohibiting sleeping, sitting and loitering on
sidewalks.
Much of the enforcement effort has been directed toward Skid
Row, a 50-square-block area in downtown Los Angeles where thousands
of homeless people camp out.
Both Fukuyama and Jacquelyn Baylon, a third-year undeclared
student, said that they had noticed many more transients in
Westwood than on campus.
Greenstein also pointed out that prohibiting those sorts of
activities on campus could become problematic from an enforcement
perspective.
“I’ve seen students dozing on benches, and we
can’t have a double standard,” she said. “I
don’t like to make transients scapegoats.”
Fukuyama said she does not object on principle to police
enforcing the city ordinance.
“As long as they’re going somewhere that’s not
a punishment, I guess it’s OK,” she said, adding she
thinks homeless people should be taken to shelters if they are
removed from the street.