By Jon Wolff
A previous Beachhead article, “The Truth about the Inside Safe Program” presented testimonies from unhoused Venice people who had been “housed” by the City of L.A.’s Inside Safe program. The article described the ineffectiveness of the program and the inhumanity of the City’s treatment of unhoused people. Shortly after that article went online, Councilmember Traci Park, along with a representative from the mayor’s office, held a Zoom meeting where they congratulated themselves again for doing such a great job housing the unhoused. The meeting didn’t allow for public comments. It was more like an infomercial for the City government to present itself in a positive light. Nothing in the meeting’s presentation matched the true stories of the people interviewed in the Beachhead article.
For this April issue of the Beachhead, I spoke with a number of people who have been placed in motels, or promised services, under the Inside Safe program. Their names are withheld to protect them from retaliation.
One man who was put in a motel related his experience of being told that he would receive housing if he would give up his tent and move into a room provided by the St. Joseph’s organization and the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority (LAHSA). He stayed in the motel for one year without being offered any prospects of permanent housing, until he was kicked out of the program for having a visitor in his room. This visitor was a friend who had knocked on his door at 6:45 AM, entered and sat down, and suffered a fatal heart attack in the room. The man called 911 but was later expelled from the program for violating a rule about unauthorized visitors. He said, “This program is a complete failure.
One woman said, “It’s pretty rough out here.” She works for a living. She has stayed at a motel for fourteen months and has had her documents ready for permanent housing, but her vouchers keep expiring. The people’s contracts guaranteed them the right to receive mail at the motel, but the staff cut that off before the holidays. The food rations that the program is supposed to provide are sub-standard, and much of it goes to waste. About the unhoused people she said, “Some of the people are the way they are because of what the system does to them. That’s why they’re addicted to drugs and why their mental health is ‘out there’. It’s why they’re not houseable, [and] walk up and down the street screaming. They weren’t like that before. It’s because of the constant getting beat down, and the things this program has been built to do.” The program staff are supposed to come into the rooms only for emergencies or wellness checks, but they come in unannounced and take people’s personal possessions. She said, “People think that the homeless are not grateful for all the money being put out. But it’s not true.” She said that the money is not going to meeting people’s needs; it’s going to the hiring of more staff.
A second woman said that the program staff writes contracts that are missing pages, which they then pressure people to sign. They call this “housing” but the people have no tenants’ rights. She had been in the program for over a year, and had asked the staff what she could do to speed up the process of getting housed. But she received no answers, She said, “Nobody polices the monies. What’s the money doing for the people?” This woman was recently expelled from the motel where she was staying. Now, she said, “I’m in a tent.”
A third woman walks with a cane but was placed in an upstairs motel room. Her room has roaches and a leaky ceiling. She had a Section 8 voucher and just needed to be housed, but her voucher expired. She said that the program case managers rotate every three to six months. She said, “They’re just keeping us in a hamster wheel.”
A second man said that he has been on housing waiting lists for three different organizations: St. Joseph’s, LAHSA, and Project Homekey. But recently, the mayor’s office made their own new list and now this man gets repeatedly overlooked for receiving housing resources. He has lived in an R.V. for a year while waiting on the old lists. When he asked what options were available, he was told to call 211.
A fourth woman is a survivor of domestic violence. She’s waited in the program for over a year. She has no mental health or drug addiction issues. She said that this program cannot really be called “temporary” because there’s nowhere to go for a next step. She said that the program staff are trying to kick people out of the motels in order to put new people in. The staff are changing the rules and making it harder for people to comply with the rules. And they keep adding new restrictions. She said, “They’re setting us up for self-destruction. I’m gonna end up back in a tent again. Even though I’ve been in full compliance with all their stupid rules, and I’ve never gotten in trouble, it doesn’t matter.”
A fifth woman said that the program puts people with drug addictions in the motel rooms without support services, medical services, or behavioral services. The people in the motels really want help, but are being kept there for a year and then thrown back on the street. She said, “The [program’s] employees got paid, and the homeless got taken off the street for a year.”
A sixth woman is disabled and waiting with a voucher that will expire soon. She said that the staff are threatening to terminate her application and “exit” her from the program for not accepting housing opportunities that she was never even offered. She has watched as the staff is constantly shuffled around and moved from one role to another. But it’s always the same staff in different positions doing the same “scam”. She said, “I have to focus on my short term options because long term options aren’t happening.”
Much of the local newspaper coverage of the Inside Safe program has reported on the funding for the program and how the funding is being spent. Organizations, locations, percentages, and numbers are the stuff of the story. Understandably, readers want to know what the City is doing to fix homelessness and what it’s doing with the money. But little attention is paid to the actual living human beings who are supposed to be served by the program. The Free Venice Beachhead will continue to do what we can to shine a light on the City and its schemes. The average record of effective reporting from the Beachhead is as follows: Whatever the Beachhead is reporting today is what the other papers will report in two years. We’d like to shorten that record to two minutes.
Categories: Venice
