The Truth About The Inside Safe Program By Jon Wolff

freevenicebeachhead

2 years ago

The Truth About The Inside Safe Program

By Jon Wolff

The L.A. mayor and the city council are still congratulating themselves for “cleaning up” homeless encampments in Venice. They promote their Inside Safe program as a means to a solution to the problem of homelessness in Los Angeles. Westside news sources celebrate the city leaders’ accomplishments. But they leave out many details about the results of the program.

About a year ago, L.A. City Councilmember Traci Park put particular emphasis on dismantling the tent encampment on 3rd Avenue and Rose Avenue in Venice. This area was already remarkably tidy and organized thanks to the efforts of Venice locals who dedicated time, labor, and money to maintaining a safe environment for the unhoused people there. The City could have learned from this one area’s success, and modeled other programs after the Venetian example. Instead, the police and sanitation department carried out special actions to harshly and hastily remove the people from 3rd Avenue. The Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority, with St. Joseph’s Center, promised the people that they would receive safe shelter if they would only surrender their tents and belongings. The mayor and city council want you to believe that this promise was kept. But a closer look at the facts reveals a different story.

Venice’s unhoused people are being “housed” in motels many miles away from Venice. I recently had the opportunity to go with Venice Native Michael Ridley to see a couple of the motels. Mr. Ridley was an organizer of the area on 3rd and Rose. For over a year now, he has kept in contact with the displaced people. He has attended to many of their needs, and he has helped them to navigate through the complexities of the City’s program. He and I talked to the people about their experiences in the motels.

One man describes the negligence of St. Joseph’s case managers. They had promised him a Section 8 housing voucher if he would give up his tent and personal possessions but, so far, they have not provided even a progress report. The motels where he’s been staying are in unsafe areas. At one motel, he was shot in the leg by someone who wasn’t in the program. He required three blood transfusions to recover from the injury.

His current motel location is at one of the most dangerous intersections in Los Angeles. Prostitutes and their customers frequent this motel at hourly motel rates, while posters warning against human trafficking hang at the front entrance. Ironically, when this man’s family members traveled thousands of miles from another state to visit him, the program’s rules wouldn’t allow them to enter the motel.

This man says that he is uncertain of his future, and that he is concerned that he may end up back where he started. He says that he feels “like a pawn”. And he asks, “Who did they [the L.A. City Council] house?”

A woman who was displaced from 3rd Avenue in Venice now stays at this same motel. She is not safe here. There are individuals in the surrounding area who know her and have already attempted to break into her room. She can’t walk to the store because the turf is too dangerous.

The program’s restrictive hours make her feel as though she’s in jail. She’s not allowed to have other program residents in her room. She has two daughters who are in the care of relatives, and are currently attending Westminster Avenue Elementary School in Venice. But when one of them came to visit her, she received a “write up” for non-compliance for having her daughter in the room.

Her belongings are stored in a storage facility, which is only paid for by the program for three months. Although there are vacancies in some of the motels in Venice, she sits in this location far from Venice. She says that this motel falls within a district that is outlined on maps of criminal activity in Los Angeles as one of the worst. And she feels that, for her, things are not getting better; they’re getting worse.

At another motel down the street, a man who was displaced from Venice says that “Blocks are being put up to stop us.” He’s on Medical Social Security with a heart condition, for which he receives $800 per month without food stamps. The program that purports to house unhoused people would not cover the $500 holding fee for an apartment. So he remains at a motel in an area saturated with gang activity. When he walks down the boulevard, he walks on the median strip because each side is controlled by different rival gangs.

He says that St. Joseph’s won’t let couples stay together, which makes it all the more dangerous for women here. A woman walking to the store will get called out by strangers in cars, “How much?” If she doesn’t respond, she can be beaten, put in the car, and forced into human trafficking. This man asks the key question, “Who’s being helped?”

Michael Ridley tells of a woman in the program who has been placed in a “converted” garage for $1,600 per month. It’s “converted” to the extent that it’s basically a box with one window and one electrical socket. It has no carpet, no insulation, a cement floor, and no toilet. There’s a toilet in a front house on the property, which this woman shares with others who live in the front house. But the door of the house is often locked. St. Joseph’s program approved this garage as living quarters.

Michael Ridley also knows another woman who was kicked out of the program and now lives in an alley adjacent to one of the motels. She pays $7 to another unhoused person in the alley for the spot that she occupies. This is the mayor’s and city council’s Inside Safe program.

Michael Ridley, along with Garry Featherstone, had organized and operated their own Venice program called Homeless Enterprise. The tents on 3rd Avenue were lined up and kept clean as regularly as an army base. Food was provided and holiday meals were prepared. They got doctors from the Venice Family Clinic to make visits to the people in the tents. There was a sense of stability on 3rd. Until the City broke it up.

Michael Ridley asserts that it was Google and Gold’s Gym in Venice that compelled the LAPD to harass and move the people off of 3rd Avenue. There are other streets in Venice where unhoused people live, but the new mayor and Councilmember Traci Park went right to this one spot. Mr. Ridley says that St. Joseph’s is still collecting money for persons they’ve kicked out and replaced with others, effectively getting paid double. He feels as though the City has “kidnapped” the people and are just moving them further and further from Venice. When asked what he would like to see the City do about all of this, he said, “I just want them to do what they say.”

Yes indeed. The City of Los Angeles will have to do what they’ve promised when more people know the truth of what they’re really doing. And the Free Venice Beachhead will continue to print the truth until they do.