Los Angeles has one of the highest concentrations of homeless people in the United States, rising 12 percent over the last two years.
Westwood community leaders need to take heed of the systemic issues that cause homelessness and treat the approximately 60 neighborhood residents living on the streets as human beings rather than as problems that need to be expelled.
Unfortunately, recent actions by the Westwood Neighborhood Council suggest they are unprepared to do that. At its May 13 meeting the Westwood Neighborhood Council voted to send a letter of disapproval for CA SB 608, known as the Right to Rest Act.
The bill, introduced in the legislature earlier this year, would provide people experiencing homelessness the right to use public spaces without fear of being harassed by law enforcement.
The council voted to send a letter of disapproval to state lawmakers, asking them to redraft the proposal.
The legislation has since been tabled and the letter is on hold, but the initial vote indicates a willingness to use bureaucracy as a barrier to respecting the fundamental rights of Americans – homeless or otherwise – to freely use public spaces.
Instead of sending a “not in my backyard” message, the Westwood Neighborhood Council should compose a recommendation to Los Angeles City Councilmember Paul Koretz reaffirming the right of all people to use public spaces in Westwood without discrimination based on housing status.
The Right to Rest Act and similar bills do not claim to solve the issue of homelessness in the state. But they ensure people experiencing homelessness are treated with the same decency and respect that we all expect from our government.
The homeless population represents around 0.1 percent of the 56,000 people that live in Westwood. Homelessness is not a major endemic issue in the area, but the attitude seeking to exclude human beings from the right to lie down for a night of rest is.
The Westwood Neighborhood Council must acknowledge that basic human dignities supercede aesthetic business appearances. It should support these residents’ right to use public benches and parks to rest.
This is particularly true in terms of the current use of metal barriers on local benches, which prevent people from using them to sleep on.
In addition to rescinding its vote to send the letter, the Westwood Neighborhood Council should take measures to remove these bars on local benches to allow men and women the right to lie down on them for a night’s sleep.
When neighborhoods focus on eradicating their homeless populations, they often end up ignoring the humanity of the people implicated. If we really want to help the homeless populations in our communities, we must start by upholding their right to use public spaces.
Perhaps it would be more productive for the Daily Bruin to actually read and understand the legislation before offering their opinion. Here is an excerpt letter from the League of California Cities who also oppose the bill as written. It touches upon many of the points that concern the Neighborhood Council, who by the way, has a significant track record in addressing homelessness in a productive way in our community.
On behalf of the CITY OF CITY, I write to inform you of our opposition to your SB 608. While the measure is well-intended, we do not believe it would make a positive contribution to combatting homelessness in our state and within our communities.
SB 608 would enact The Right to Rest Act, which would provide homeless persons the right to use public space without discrimination based on their housing status. It would describe basic human and civil rights that may be exercised without being subject to criminal or civil sanctions or harassment, including the right to:
– Use and to move freely in public spaces…without time limitations that discriminate based on housing status;
– Rest in public spaces* and to protect oneself from the elements in a nonobstructive manner;
– Eat, share, accept or give food in any public space in which having food is not prohibited;
– Perform religious observances in public spaces without discrimination based on housing status; and
– Occupy a motor vehicle or a recreational vehicle legally parked or parked with the permission of the property owner.
The bill defines public spaces as any property that is owned, in whole or in part, by any state or local government entity of any property upon which there is an easement for public use and that is held open to the public including, but not limited to, plazas, courtyards, parking lots, sidewalks, public transportation facilities and services, public buildings, shopping centers, and parks.
SB 608 would exempt conduct that is protected by the bill, as described above, from the definition of the crime of disorderly conduct. Finally it would authorize a person whose rights have been violated pursuant to these provisions to enforce those rights in a civil action in which the court may award the prevailing party injunctive and declaratory relief, restitution, damages, statutory damages of $1,000 per violation, and attorney’s fees and costs.
SB 608 contains no solutions for homelessness. It contains no new programs, no funding for housing, and no effort to improve services. It creates a special set of exemptions and privileges for one group of people and undermines the equal applicability of laws.
We believe that real solutions lie in providing resources for affordable housing and for treating underlying problems, not creating a special set of exemptions, privileges and rights for the homeless to occupy public and private property without complying with laws that apply to all others in society. Such an approach would create social disorder and undermine the ability of all others to access clean and non-threatening public spaces, while jeopardizing property rights and the economic viability of local businesses.
While we oppose the approach of SB 608 we share your desire to address the root causes of homelessness. To do so we must work together to provide more resources for affordable housing such as those proposed by AB 35 (Chiu and Atkins) which increases affordable housing tax credits by $300 million and AB 1335 (Atkins) which would provide a permanent source of funding for affordable housing. These bills represent more constructive approaches to solving this chronic problem.