Is The Safer Cities Initiative Increasing Homelessness In Los Angeles?

If you were to say that handing out jaywalking tickets is an ineffective means of addressing homelessness, you'd be right; at least according to the Los Angeles Community Action Network (LA CAN).

Following over four years of Skid Row's Safer Cities Initiative, a controversial policing effort championed by Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, LA CAN recently released a human rights assessment of the city's program revealing some extremely troubling results.

Purported to increase public safety in downtown LA and bring additional homeless services to the community, according to the report the Safer Cities appears in some cases to be actually increasing homelessness and violating the human rights of many in the homeless and very low-income communities of Los Angeles.

Launched in September of 2006, the Safer Cities Initiative added 50 police officers to target narcotics-related crime and misdemeanor offenses such as illegal vending, littering, jaywalking, dumping and vandalism in the Skid Row area of downtown Los Angeles. While supporters of the program, which include business owners and even some working with the homeless community, praise Safer Cities for reducing crime and "sidewalk" deaths, critics are concerned about the unintended consequences of the approach.

LA CAN surveyed over 200 poor and homeless individuals living in downtown Los Angeles, and found that more than half (53.6%) of the respondents had been arrested in the previous year alone.  As a result of those arrests, 51.5% lost their housing, 42.4% lost access to social services, and 16.4% lost employment. While the Los Angeles Police Department claim that they've made improvements in biased policing (aka racial profiling), 75% of surveyed residents reported being profiled in the past year based on race, economic status or residence in the Skid Row community.  LA CAN also found that 80% of those they spoke to do not feel safe from police violence or harassment.

Reducing crime, preventing deaths and making the area safer are no doubt important and laudable goals, but if such a high percentage of residents are reporting that the Safer Cities approach is pushing them further towards instability and homelessness, it's time to reevaluate the program's tactics. Efforts to relieve the burden of citations for those unable to afford them have helped in some cases, such as the "Streets or Services" (SOS) program and "Citation Clinics" that forgive misdemeanor tickets in exchange for community service. But the Safer Cities Initiative also needs to focus more closely on connecting the poor and homeless population of downtown LA with social services and housing support, instead of policing residents so aggressively that they lose what they do have.

Across the country we've continually seen the devastating and ineffective results of criminalizing homelessness. The Safer Cities Initiative has made tremendous strides towards making the Skid Row area safer for residents, but the program should also ensure that it is protecting the rights of those living in the community and is working to connect them with the services they need.  Sign our petition telling the LAPD to stop aggressive arrests on Skid Row and improve the Safer Cities program.

Photo credit: James