Feeding the Problem?

Of the 22 programs that feed Santa Monica's homeless in public parks, nearly all come from outside the city. In a three-part series, The Lookout explores the connection between an increasingly visible homeless population and the programs many City officials and Downtown merchants say are feeding a growing problem.

By Oliver Lukacs

July 29, 2002 -- It is a typical Tuesday afternoon in Lincoln Park, and it seems that a hobo convention is about take place. Scattered on the grass, slouched against trees, napping under blankets in the shade, lounging in clumps cracking jokes, the 100 or so homeless are apparently waiting for the leader to arrive and call the meeting to order.

Suddenly, as if on cue, bodies snap to their feet and assemble with a Chinese-fire-drill urgency into a military-issue, single-file line, as five youths approach lugging boxes.

As it has happened every Tuesday at 12:30 p.m., for the past three years, the homeless are greeted with a brief "hello" and handed sack lunches containing baloney and cheese sandwiches, potato chips, orange juice, a banana and cookies.

"We used to make only forty to fifty lunches," said Russell Calleros, Campus Minister for Community Service at Loyola Marymount University, which funds the $7,000-a-year, student-volunteer-run operation. "Now we make a little over a hundred, and sometimes we even run out because the need is increasing… It's a chance for the students to exercise their faith."

The LMU program was started by two students from Santa Monica concerned that there were no feeding programs in their city on Tuesdays. It is now one of 22 -- most of them from other towns -- that serve free meals throughout the week, primarily in Lincoln, Palisades and Memorial parks. The patchwork of programs is comprised of groups and individuals from at least eight cities, some as far away as Downey and Ventura, according to an investigation by The Lookout.

Along with free meals served on site by local social service agencies, the feeding programs, that run between 7:30 a.m. and 8 p.m., can provide the estimated 4,000 homeless people circulating through Santa Monica every year with a choice of between one and five locations -- depending on the day.

"It's big-time, major important because everyone needs to eat and not everyone has income to go somewhere to eat," said Viper Maid, a 31-year-old homeless woman, who depends on the programs for her two meals a day.

But of late, the meal programs are coming under increasing attack by City officials and Downtown merchants, who argue that the out-of-towners are feeding a longstanding problem by enabling the homeless to stay on the streets, if not luring more and more of them to Santa Monica.

"It just jams up our parks and concentrates a homeless problem in Santa Monica," said Councilman Robert Holbrook, a long-time critic of the City's approach to dealing with the homeless problem. "If people want to feed the homeless, I just wish they would do it in their neighborhoods."

"Why aren't they catering to their own needs?" said Joel Schwartz, the coordinator of homeless services for the City. "Probably because they don't want to turn into another Santa Monica."

Sylvia Schiada, an out-of-town volunteer, countered that she wants to go where the problem is -- Santa Monica. One Saturday out of every month, Schiada caravans with 20 evangelical missionary "moms and dads" from the American Martyrs Church in Manhattan Beach to feed the approximately 300 people in Palisades Park who gather for the church's program.

"Let's face it, there isn't that many homeless in Hermosa, Redondo, or Manhattan Beach," Schiada said. "You can count them on one hand. In Santa Monica there's legions."

In fact, the legions are growing, Schiada said, and to meet the demand, the group actively recruits more volunteers who collect and bring the supplies, which include food and clothes. To that end, the church's Web site solicits help -- right under "build a house in Mexico" -- through its Volunteer Opportunity of the Month.

"God the Son placed himself among the least of His brothers," the Web site reads. "Street people are often viewed as losers, misfits, users, and no good. We must remember, they too are children of God."

Since their initial visit in January, American Martyrs' volunteers have had to beef up the supplies handed out every month, which include "street-survival gear" (donated clothing, chap sticks, shoes and socks) and food bags filled with peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, a banana and a bottle of water, Schiada said.

"What astounded most of us was that we handed out over three hundred food bags and we still needed more," she said. What was also astounding was that in her many missions she'd "never seen the same person twice. That's quite unusual."

But some City officials argue that it is the programs that are creating the legions and not the other way around. If the groups fed the homeless "they can count on one hand" in their own back yard, their towns could turn into another Santa Monica, they contend.

"Why doesn't she feed the ones on the one hand?" Holbrook said. "Then she'll have to feed the ones on the other hand, and then the ones on both her feet."

Complaining that an increasing homeless presence is jeopardizing the future of the Third Street Promenade, the Bayside Board last week unanimously voted to send get-tough measures to the City Council that would limit feeding programs in the parks and prohibit people from sleeping in private doorways.

The feeding programs are spitting-distance from the business hub. The problem is particularly acute near the Promenade, the pier and the string of upscale hotels overlooking the palm-lined bluffs along Ocean Avenue, prompting many merchants to complain that the homeless are driving away tourist money, which is the local economy's lifeblood.

"Our sales figures are down 20 percent," a call-to-arms petition signed by 82 merchants and employees on the Promenade read. "More and more are disgusted with the idea of coming to the Promenade because of the element of people they find in the streets."

City officials also worry that the feeding programs are undermining an eight-year-old City policy that replaces "emergency services" -- such as food and overnight shelter -- with programs that focus on permanent solutions.

"Feeding them just enables them to stay on the street," said Schwartz harkening back to lessons learned from former city-run "emergency" food-service programs. "It has to do with the willingness of them getting off the street and dealing with a system. That's a choice that takes some people five years to make."