Homelessness in WeHo: Time to Create a Homeless Court

One of the benefits of being a council member in a local government with a strong local economy, is having the resources to come up with innovative solutions and strategies. While other local governments suffer under the burden of heavy pension obligations or stagnant business districts, West Hollywood is one of the few municipalities that has strong reserves, a triple A bond rating and a prosperous budget that enables us to be creative in government solutions to problems. We have seen great innovative projects launched like “The PickUp Line” to solve late night transportation and the automated parking garage to solve severe parking deficiencies for night time use in the MidCity area. So, I have been thinking about homeless issues and brainstorming with numerous individuals.

After many meetings and months of discussions with residents from the Eastside to the Westside, chamber of commerce members, law enforcement, public safety staff, human services staff and city management, I have analyzed the issue thoroughly and come up with some ideas to tackle the issue of homelessness in West Hollywood.

There is a link missing between the homeless and available services. The problem is not a lack of resources. The problem is attaching homeless individuals to those resources. Here is a sample of the resources that currently exist for West Hollywood homeless:

— PATH (People assisting the homeless) finds housing, food, clothing, jobs, substance abuse programs, health and mental health services.
— Year Round Emergency Shelter Helpline
— The Youth Center on Highland – for LGBT homeless young people — provides meals, showers, case management, counseling, GED preparation, job training skills and employment services for those 18 to 24 years old.
— Jewish Family Services has its SOVA community food and resource program.
— Saban community clinic offers medical and dental care and mental health and case management
— 12 Step recovery meetings are at the West Hollywood Recovery Center, Log Cabin and other venues.
— The Sheriff’s COPPS team addresses quality of life issues and links the homeless to services.

We have been using law enforcement and social services staff to link homeless people to these services. Some homeless people take advantage of these services. Some do not. These have been voluntary efforts on the streets with staff and sheriff deputies doing most of the work. But we have completely overlooked what to do with those homeless individuals who commit crimes and are arrested.

Here is the dilemma: Some homeless people commit misdemeanors and felonies. The crimes range from petty theft, vandalism, public urination or intoxication, assault and battery to more serious felonies like burglary, robbery and assault with a deadly weapon.

I am a criminal defense attorney by day. So I have witnessed the homeless who come before the judges at the LAX Court which serves the City of West Hollywood. These individuals are arrested, brought to a judge within three days, often receive credit for the time they have served in custody and are returned to the street within the same week. There is no meaningful intervention that occurs while they are in custody.

So we have been under-utilizing the power of the courts in addressing these issues. It is frustrating for our sheriff’s deputies to keep arresting the same individuals over and over again, only to see them back on the street in a matter of days or weeks. We cannot expect law enforcement to solve the problem without back up and resources.

So, here is what I am proposing: It is time to create a Homeless Court at the LAX Courthouse. This courthouse serves the Westside communities of Santa Monica, West L.A., Culver City, Beverly Hills and West Hollywood. It is accurate to say that all of these Westside cities are having the same issues with the homeless and often push the homeless over each other’s borders into a neighboring community. We are just shuffling the homeless from city to city. The county currently has a mental health court. But its jurisdiction is limited to the issue of whether or not an individual has the capacity to understand the court proceedings that he or she is involved in. The county has created drug courts to intervene with drug addicts with serious recidivism to put a short leash on these women and men to give them a structured program to find a path out of addiction and into recovery. So why not a homeless court?

When a homeless individual is arrested and charged with a crime, that case could be assigned to the homeless court. This court would be equipped with special prosecutors and public defenders who are well versed in the county resources that are available. The defendant would have two choices: either serve a meaningful period of time in county jail or enter into a diversion program. The diversion program would involve being assigned to a case manager at one of the community organizations that currently exist. These case managers would go to work to find the individual housing first. And after housing is secured, then the necessary alcohol/drug treatment program, mental health services, GED education or job training. The diversion program could be anywhere from 6 to 18 months depending on the need. And at the end of the diversion, ideally the court case would be dismissed with someone who was formerly homeless now in a secure dwelling, with food and shelter, and on the road to recovery and employability.

This could be a pilot program for the Westside cities. We could figure out what works and what doesn’t work. And then export this idea to Downtown L.A., the San Fernando and San Gabriel valleys, the South Bay cities and Long Beach. Of course this requires resources beyond what the City of West Hollywood could afford. I have already started working with city staff to lobby in Sacramento and the Hall of Administration to determine what levels of funding exist from the State of California and the County of Los Angeles.

All levels of government have been trying to figure out how to address these issues. But we have excluded the judicial branch of government as an additional tool to advance our policy goals. Will this be a catch-all solution? No, probably not. But it will go a long way to assist us in linking homeless people to services rather than just pushing them in and out of the revolving door of criminal justice in Los Angeles County. Let’s give it the old West Hollywood try, using creativity, resources and innovation!