No Christmas Eve ‘Miracle on 1st St’; Aid for the Homeless Falls Through

Ted Hayes’ hopes for a Christmas Eve “miracle on 1st Street”--the setting up of Tent City II to provide holiday shelter for 300 of Los Angeles’ estimated 30,000 homeless people--came close to happening Wednesday night but collapsed under the weight of governmental red tape and misunderstanding.

Thousands of pounds of food and eight portable toilets and other donated equipment were delivered to the site of the Old State Building on 1st Street in downtown Los Angeles, but none of the tents arrived. Hayes said it had been his understanding that the Marine Corps Air Station at El Toro would lend his grass-roots organization two large dormitory tents and three small tents for storage of food and supplies.

But the tents were not delivered, and a Marine Corps spokeswoman said that although Hayes’ organization had asked to borrow the tents earlier in the week, the request had never been approved by military authorities.

“I have no idea how they got the idea we could do it,” said Staff Sgt. Viki Turney of the Marine station’s public affairs office. “There was a breakdown in communications, possibly, between our office and this group.”

An obviously disappointed Hayes, huddled Wednesday night in a blanket on the concrete steps of what once was the State Building between Spring Street and Broadway, said that he was not sure what his next step would be.

“But,” he said firmly, “we will continue on--this is the plight of the homeless . . . we’re not going to give up.”

He said he will explore alternatives.

“The movie industry has a lot of tents, and they come down and do a lot of shoots of Skid Row and the homeless, make a lot of good money off of us and don’t put that much back.

“Maybe somebody in the industry will come forward and bring a couple of tents. If not, then we’ll have to hope people will send some money in, and we’ll go out and rent some tents.”

Hayes, a former minister, was instrumental in setting up the Justiceville shantytown in Skid Row in 1985, which eventually was bulldozed out of existence by the city on May 10 of that year.

Justiceville was an outgrowth of Tent City I, which Hayes organized on the site of the Old State Building during the 1984-85 holiday season. Tent City II, which was to have been set up on the same spot last weekend, had been snarled in government red tape from the outset.

The problem was that Hayes’ Justiceville organization did not have the cash to pay the insurance premium on the $500,000 liability insurance the state Department of General Services demanded before giving permission to use the site.

Cash Donated

At midafternoon Wednesday, a jubilant Hayes announced that Canyon Country contractor Geoff Kail had donated $2,500 in cash to pay the premium and an Arizona insurance company had agreed to handle the liability coverage.

“We’re on our way!” he told reporters.

Later, informed that the Marines had said they would not deliver the tents, Hayes commented: “I feel lousy about it, but we’re not going to give up. . . . I’m not sure I can blame the Marine Corps because they couldn’t come in without the insurance, and I can’t blame the insurance company.

“I got to lay it at the foot of the state, because the state has tax dollars to deal with these problems, the state has put the County of Los Angeles under a mandate to accommodate the homeless. . . . It’s unnecessary red tape, the same red tape that does us in all the time.”

About three dozen men and women were scattered around the grassy site, and Hayes said he was not sure what would happen to them during the night, when temperatures were supposed to drop into the high 40s.