Proposed Curbs on Homeless May Face Constitutional Snag

Two years after California’s vagrancy law was struck down by the Supreme Court, many cities are struggling to find ways to discourage homeless people from living on the streets.

Glendale officials are studying a proposal by Police Chief David J. Thompson which, in effect, would make it illegal to be homeless in the city.

Thompson this month proposed an ordinance that would outlaw sleeping in a vehicle, tent or any other temporary shelter. Violation of the law would be punishable by a fine of up to $100, and refusal to move the vehicle or shelter could lead to its impoundment. Failure to pay the fine could result in a sentence of up to six months in jail.

The chief’s proposal, which may be expanded to include the homeless who sleep in private doorways, is aimed at pushing the homeless out of town, said Scott Howard, senior assistant city attorney.

Taken Off Agenda

The measure was scheduled for routine adoption by the City Council on May 7 but was quickly pulled off the agenda for further study when advocates for the homeless heard about it.

One area of dispute is that the measure would apply not only to the homeless, but also to travelers who make short visits to friends or relatives in Glendale and stay in motor homes, campers and tents. There are no trailer parks or campgrounds in the city; the closest is 18 miles away in Sylmar and costs $18 a day.

But a far bigger roadblock for the proposed ordinance is its potential constitutional problems. Civil-liberties lawyers say such an ordinance, like the anti-vagrancy efforts in many other cities, might have a tough time holding up in court.

In an interview, Fred Okrand of the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California called the Glendale proposal “an unfortunate thing” and said the ACLU would “take a very hard look” at any ordinance adopted by the city. “To make it almost impossible to even live is quite heartless,” he said.

Written Recommendation

Thompson, vacationing in England, was not available to comment on his plan but, in his written recommendation to the council, he said:

“While every effort needs to be made to aid persons in need who find themselves without shelter, allowing the use of public parks, sidewalks, streets and parking lots is not appropriate. The attendant health dangers and the potential for criminal victimization are great.” He said that “use of (public) properties as temporary shelter areas prevents legitimate public access and lowers the quality of the related public service.”

Police Capt. Tom Rutkoske, who is studying the issue for the department, said, “We receive complaints from all over the city,” an average of 20 to 35 weekly, up significantly from last year.

But, Rutkoske said, police now are powerless to do anything other than ask vagrants to move on. He said the city’s vagrancy law “has no teeth in it anymore” since California’s vagrancy law, upon which the city’s ordinance was patterned, was declared unconstitutional.

The nation’s high court ruled that the California law, enacted in 1872, was vague and a violation of privacy rights. The law allowed police to arrest anyone who refused “to identify himself and to account for his presence when requested by any peace officer to do so.”

Civil rights advocates charged that the California law allowed police to single out individuals merely because they looked different. The landmark ruling in 1983 came in the case of San Diego Police Chief William Kolender vs. Edward Lawson.

No Enforcement Power

Since that decision, California cities have been mainly powerless to deal with vagrants who have flocked to the state seeking jobs and a temperate climate, officials say.

Howard acknowledges that any ordinance the council considers “will need a great deal of further study” to avoid infringements on constitutional rights. He said that, if the ordinance proposed by police had been adopted by the council, “We would not have gone hog wild” to enforce it by arresting transients. He said the purpose of the ordinance is to give police more authority to keep transients moving, rather than to enforce penalties.

The threat of fining a person who has no place to live is a bit ironic, Sheila Gonzalez, Glendale Municipal Court administrator, conceded. If a person has no money for a place to stay, then he or she would be unable to pay a fine. However, a judge could assign the offender to do some public service or suspend the fine.

Failure to Appear

Gonzalez said her “experienced guess” is that most people cited under such an ordinance would not show up in court. Failure to appear or pay a fine is a misdemeanor, punishable by up to $500 in fines, six months in jail or both.

Advocates for the down and out feel the city ought to try to help its homeless, estimated to be at least 30 on any given night, rather than fine or jail them.

The city last year allocated $14,400 to the Salvation Army and Catholic Social Services to provide food and temporary shelter for the homeless. Churches and community organizations also donate money. But both the Salvation Army and Catholic Social Services said their funds for housing will be depleted this month, and no new city funds will be allocated until July 1.

Surprised by Problem

Margo Gutierrez, caseworker of the Catholic Social Services’ Loaves & Fishes Center in Glendale, said that, when she first took the job in January, “I thought I would never see anyone who was homeless, this being Glendale. Every day I am surprised at the number of people who come in here. It’s amazing.” She estimates that her service has provided temporary shelter at local motels for 300 people this year.

Gutierrez said some of the homeless have come to Glendale to escape the tougher streets of downtown Los Angeles. But she also said that many are elderly, long-term Glendale residents on fixed incomes who end up on the streets when they cannot afford rent increases or the first- and last-month rent for another apartment. “The ones that are really tragic are the elderly people out on the streets. Social Security is all that they have and it’s not enough,” she said.

One Couple’s Story

She told of one couple, ages 72 and 53, who moved out of their apartment when the rent was raised and are now living in their car because they needed it for transportation to the doctor. “They said it was cheaper to keep the car than the apartment. We gave them shelter for a week but that was it. They are living in different areas around Glendale.”

Another woman, 58, had worked in Glendale for years as a live-in housekeeper. When she became arthritic in a leg and could no longer work, she was put out on the streets, Gutierrez said. She said that she tries to place the elderly in a home-sharing program with other elderly but that not enough housing is available.

Aid for the homeless is only temporary. Vouchers for a motel room are issued for a maximum of one week, and the number of times a needy person may seek assistance is limited. Only a few motels participate in the program, social workers said.

Federal Program

The city also administers a federal rent-subsidy program for 490 families. The City Council last week approved federal assistance for 76 more families, raising the number of households eligible for help to 566. But 1,600 families are on a waiting list, city officials said.

Maj. Raymond Peacock, the Salvation Army’s social-service director for the western United States, said the Los Angeles area “is known as the homeless capital of the world.” He said there are an estimated 35,000 to 50,000 homeless in Los Angeles County. “The end of the rainbow is here in L.A.,” but employment opportunities here for the chronically unemployed are slim, he said.

Residents in cities throughout California have not welcomed the influx. In some areas--Santa Barbara and Santa Cruz, for example--vigilante groups have attacked transients to scare them and others away.

At the request of the City of San Diego, Assemblyman Larry Stirling (R-San Diego) has introduced a new vagrancy bill that would permit police to question people who wander the streets. But civil-rights lawyers say Stirling’s proposal is as unconstitutional as the state law that was ruled unconstitutional.

After months of study and debate, the City of Santa Monica last month adopted an ordinance that prohibits a person from staying in a parked vehicle in a residential area for more than 30 minutes between midnight and 5 a.m. after they have been directed by a police officer to move. The law, unlike the one proposed in Glendale, allows transients to stay in commercial and industrial areas.

Santa Monica City Atty. Robert Myers charged that Glendale’s proposal “makes no sense because the city would be telling its own residents to get out of town. If all cities were to take that approach, they would be simply shifting the need for services to other communities, and that’s irresponsible.”

And some of Glendale’s homeless, when told of the proposal, reacted angrily. One was Bob F., 49, who lives with his mentally retarded stepsister, Judith, in a camper truck in Glendale and survives on her $500 monthly welfare check. Bob, who asked that his surname not be used, said he drives to city parks during the day and parks at a private business next to the Golden State Freeway at night, where he serves as an unpaid security guard in exchange for permission to stay there.

“We can’t live in an apartment; the rents are too high,” Bob said. “If they make it illegal to live in our campers, they’ll drive everybody into the poorhouse.”