Natalie Delgadillo: Citing, jailing not solution to homelessness

About 20 percent of the national homeless population is in California.

A bill recently introduced by Assemblyman Tom Ammiano, D-San Francisco, may grant these men, women and children certain basic rights and dignities.

Homeless people are often ticketed or jailed for sleeping, sitting, or lying down on sidewalks because of city-wide “anti-nuisance” laws that make these actions illegal.

Ammiano’s proposed legislation would grant homeless individuals the right to rest and set their belongings down in public spaces like sidewalks.

Likely to pass because of the Democratic supermajority, the bill also contains a provision that would require local governments to provide hygiene stations for homeless people.

By committing local governments to finding solutions, the bill adds momentum to public and private efforts aimed at alleviating homelessness without citing and jailing many individuals.

Under the current law, some local governments, including Santa Monica, have been accused of using citations and jail time as temporary solutions to homelessness.

“Being ticketed for loitering, sitting on a sidewalk or a bench – it essentially turns their lives into a crime,” said Carlos Alcala, communications director in Assemblyman Tom Ammiano’s office. “With this bill, Mr. Ammiano is trying to shift the debate.”

Westwood is one example of how the issue of homelessness can be effectively tackled without placing individuals in jail.

Homeless people in the Westwood area are generally left in peace, as long as they aren’t disrupting daily life.

In 2012, a significant initiative centered on homelessness began. Westwood Village Improvement Association partnered with the organization People Assisting The Homeless, or PATH, to help alleviate the homeless presence in Westwood.

Since they began working with PATH, the organization has been able to bring about a dozen chronically homeless people in Westwood into temporary and permanent housing, and conducted other forms of outreach with about 60 individuals, said Andrew Thomas, executive director of the Westwood Village Improvement Association.

By focusing on addressing the underlying issues of homelessness instead of citing and jailing homeless people, Westwood has been able to make the village a friendlier place for all.

In their first annual survey of stakeholders’ top three concerns, “homeless/transient issues” ranked as the top concern for merchants and property owners in Westwood. A year later, homeless/transient issues had fallen to third place, said Eric Norton, a spokesman for the association.

In effect, Westwood shows what other cities may look like if the legality of citing and jailing homeless individuals is taken away.

Reasonably, some Westwood businesses are concerned that such a bill could affect them negatively.

Anthony Carron, owner of 800 Degrees Neapolitan Pizzeria, says that Westwood’s cleanliness and homeless presence has improved considerably in the past year, and he is concerned that this bill could undo some of that progress because law enforcement would no longer be able to ask people to move off the sidewalk.

Carron’s establishment deals with issues of homeless persons bothering customers or using his business’ restroom to bathe, he said.

This bill, however, would still allow business owners in Westwood to reserve their bathroom use for customers, and would not allow the homeless to do other illegal things, such as aggressively panhandling or urinating in public.

Moreover, it would require local governments to provide public washrooms and bathrooms, so the homeless population would no longer necessarily need to use private amenities.

It seems unlikely that the bill will reverse Westwood’s progress on the issue of homelessness – on the contrary, it will provide more resources for the homeless population and allow them the dignity that cleanliness and legal protection provide.

Giving them protection will push communities to focus their energies on long-term solutions, as PATH has done in Westwood, ultimately making streets cleaner and friendlier.

Simply citing or jailing the homeless does nothing to eradicate the problem, but substantial and compassionate efforts to help the homeless as well as prevent their disruption of businesses can make a real difference.