Heilman Questions West Hollywood Homeless Response

If you live or work in West Hollywood, you do not need a Staff report to tell you homelessness is a mess. You see the tents, bedrolls and drug use in doorways and parking garages. The same people, sometimes hostile, oftentimes experiencing a mental health crisis, in the same spots for months at a time. Neighbors write to the City. Small businesses call the Sheriff. Folks who are unhoused are bounced between concern, anger and burnout. Without a doubt, it continues to be one of the more pressing issues of our time – seemingly everywhere you go – not just WeHo. Most have compassion for their fellow humans in need, but their frustrations run deep. It remains a complex and complicated issue in search of solutions with meaningful, wide-ranging and long lasting impact.

On paper, the City has built up a real response, with more beds, more contracts and more people in the field. Acting Human Services and Rent Stabilization Director Christine Safriet laid all of that out, and more, at this week’s City Council meeting. They did the work and took the questions. Still, the basic complaint hung in the room. What residents see on the sidewalk does not yet feel like the system they hear described.

Heilman presses City on stalled homeless response

Vice Mayor John Heilman told the story of one person, but it was a familiar story that residents and business owners have experienced far too many times, for far too long. He shared his personal experience encountering a woman on Larrabee at Sunset who was camped on private property, out in the rain. He said outreach teams have checked on her many times. Each time, she declines help and remains in the same spot. “Leaving this person there is not compassionate,” Heilman said. “It is not care. It is cruel.”

His comments came after Safriet’s update on the City’s Homeless Initiative and its Coordinated Response Framework, the plan that is supposed to link Human Services, the Sheriff’s Station, the West Hollywood Care Team, Healthcare in Action, Security Ambassadors and county agencies so they are working from the same playbook. It is very clear these teams are working hard to help WeHo’s homeless population, but some things are still not connecting. It certainly is not for a lack of trying, as was obvious after the in-depth report presented by Safriet and others.

Safriet outlined recent changes and provided thorough updates. The Holloway Interim Housing Program is open with 20 rooms, and those rooms are already occupied. Healthcare in Action now handles street outreach and street medicine in West Hollywood every day from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. The Care Team responds around the clock, answering the Homeless Concern line and backing up outreach. She confirmed County funding tied to Measure A has shifted. West Hollywood’s annual money for direct homeless services dropped from over $300,000 to about $160,000, which is now going to Holloway, while new dollars are being added for homelessness prevention only — not for direct services to people already on the street. The City has also issued a consultant RFP (Request for Proposal) to help connect data systems and build tools that can be shared with the public. Even with those changes, as Heilman points out, residents and businesses are still encountering many of the same people in the same locations, in the same conditions.

Heilman pushes for leverage on repeat cases and a stronger, better used homeless concern line

Heilman said the cases that worry him most are the people everyone in town seems to recognize, the ones who have been offered shelter beds and case management over and over but stay outside and show up again in complaints about people sleeping in doorways, camping on private property or upsetting nearby residents.

He underscored that he is not looking to criminalize homelessness. His argument was that there might be some situations where the threat of enforcement might be used only after every other step has been tried and failed.

In the Larrabee example, he said, deputies could respond with outreach workers, explain that the person is trespassing, and then spell out a choice: go through booking on a trespass charge or accept help and services. The point, he said, is not to rack up criminal records, but to use the possibility of arrest to move a few of the most entrenched cases into care. “Our goal is to get people off the street and into services,” Heilman said. “Maybe that threat of arrest is what finally gets some people to say yes.” City Manager, David Wilson later tried to pin down the unresolved policy question under Heilman’s example, asking whether, when the same person keeps coming back to the same private doorway and is still trespassing, “does the Council want the Sheriff’s Department to then arrest those individuals?” He said Staff does not have clear direction on that now and needs it. Heilman answered that “personally, I do not want to arrest anyone,” but wants that option on the table so deputies can tell someone, “we are going to book you for trespassing, or we have outreach workers here who can help you get into some kind of service or care,” using the threat of arrest in a few cases to push people toward help, not to fill the jail.

He also questioned whether the City is getting full value out of the outreach system it already funds. At one point, Staff said the Homeless Concern line (323.848.6490) gets about three to four calls a day, with an average response time of 16 minutes. Heilman, who said he calls frequently, said that number does not match what anyone can see walking down Santa Monica Boulevard. Heilman said, “We could all walk down the street, and we would see five or six people who are homeless. Why aren’t those calls coming in? The volume tells me either that we’re not communicating to the security ambassadors that that’s their job, or we’re not communicating to our City Staff, and we’re certainly not communicating to the public that this is a number to call when you see a homeless individual who appears to be in need of assistance. So that, to me, is one of the things that we really need to work on.” He added, “I can’t believe that that’s the number that the Security Ambassadors call, and we’re only getting three calls a day. What they’re doing then is just telling the people to move, and they’re not calling our teams that are supposed to assist the homeless individuals.”

He is right about one thing, I do not believe many residents are even aware of the Homeless Concern Line or what it does. Danny Rivas, City of West Hollywood’s Director of Community Safety, clarified later that Security Ambassadors are talking with far more unhoused people each day than the three or four calls showing up on the Homeless Concern Line, because they only phone in when someone already agrees to services. Heilman objected to that approach. Ambassadors do not provide services themselves, he said, so they should not be deciding when a case gets logged. If the City is paying specialists to track people and build relationships, he wants everyone who appears to be living outside to enter into that system and be offered contact with outreach, not just told to move along.

Rivas acknowledged his earlier answer needed that context and agreed with Heilman that ambassadors should start calling the Care Team or Healthcare in Action whenever they encounter someone who appears to be unhoused, not just when a person says yes. Heilman also floated a budget shift. If the message from Staff is that outreach teams are tied up, he said, then he would rather talk about trimming the number of Security Ambassadors and adding more outreach and behavioral health staff, so more of the City’s money is going to people whose main job is to seek out and stay connected with unhoused residents.

Hang wants data, not just stories

Councilmember Danny Hang wants deadlines to mean something, and numbers on the table. He reminded Staff that, back in June, the Council asked for a follow up on homelessness in about 90 days. People were told a plan was coming. The update arrived later than that. Hang said residents notice when timelines slip.

He also pressed on the consultant plan. Other nearby cities already have pilot programs and tools in place, he said. If West Hollywood needs policies, protocols and software, his question was simple, why not study those examples and borrow what works here instead of waiting months for an RFP and contract.

What he wants most is a regular public report. Hang said homeless service providers should be going to the Human Services Commission on a set schedule, the same way the Sheriff’s Station and Security Ambassadors report each month to the Public Safety Commission. He spelled out the basics he expects to see, how many people are contacted, how many are repeat cases, where the calls are coming from and how long it takes teams to show up. With that information, he said, the City could see where problems cluster and send Healthcare in Action and the Care Team to those locations first.

“The City spends a lot of money on social services, and the community wants to see results,” Hang said. “That is kind of where I am at. It is all about data and metrics.”

Human Services Director Christine Safriet told him those numbers are already being collected through the City’s contracts and can be shared. The harder part, she said, is that providers use different data systems, so Staff still have to “connect the dots” between them and then find a way to show that information clearly to the public and the Council.

Erickson says laws have not changed and questions LAHSA count

Councilmember John Erickson spent much of his time drawing a line between what the City controls and what it does not.

Inside City Hall, he said, the response has “evolved” since the June study session. Calls now move more smoothly between Staff, Security Ambassadors, the Care Team and Healthcare in Action. The rules that govern what deputies and county clinicians can do on the street are the same.

Sheriff Lt. Ashley Turner walked through a routine call. If someone is camped in front of a business, deputies start by asking the person to move and explaining why. If that person refuses, there are municipal codes that allow an arrest. In some cases, the station can also ask for a magistrate review, which sends the case to a panel of judges to decide whether to keep someone in custody long enough to see a judge in person.

Erickson asked whether repeated bookings could make things worse for people who are unhoused by adding fines, records or other problems that later get in the way of housing. Staff said the impact is very “case specific.” Erickson said he does not want West Hollywood “in the business” of putting things on someone’s record if they are likely to end up back on the street a day or two later.

Jonah Glickman, Homelessness and Housing Deputy, with the Office of Supervisor, Lindsay Horvath then walked through the state rules. Care Court is still voluntary. People have to agree to participate. SB 43, which is set to take effect in 2026, will broaden the “gravely disabled” standard that allows a psychiatric hold so it can include severe substance use and failure to seek needed medical care. It will not shorten the longer conservatorship process. One person can spend roughly six months moving through that court pipeline.

“I mean, there are 70,000 people sleeping on the streets in L.A. County,” Erickson said. “So one person, roughly six months… so that is a problem.”

He then turned to the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority count. Erickson said he has little confidence in LAHSA’s numbers and pointed out that West Hollywood already runs its own quarterly census through Healthcare in Action. Those local counts, paired with better reporting from City funded providers, may give West Hollywood a clearer picture than waiting for a regional estimate that often does not match what people see on their own blocks.

The City will still join this January’s LAHSA count. Even so, Erickson said he does not want West Hollywood tied to those numbers in future years if the new county department is slow to fix the system.

Meister zeroes in on what people see and who is on the street

Councilmember Lauren Meister stayed close to what residents talk about in public comment and in emails. She said she agreed with Vice Mayor Heilman and pointed to complaints about drug use and disruptive behavior in and around parks and storefronts. One example she mentioned was the CVS at Santa Monica and La Cienega, next to the Holloway House. “I am not saying it has anything to do with the Holloway,” she said. “I mean, I’ve walked by there at the parking garage entrance at the CVS on Santa Monica and it’s not good… maybe, it has nothing to do with the Holloway, but it is a concern, and there is something going on over there.”

Meister asked the question: “What, if anything, will look different a few months from now?” Staff said outreach teams and Security Ambassadors are told to call the Sheriff’s Department when they see open drug use or someone who is clearly intoxicated. Providers keep trying to move people into treatment, they said, even when it takes many visits. They also acknowledged there is a hard group to reach, people who appear to be in trouble, turn down services again and again and are not obviously breaking the law when someone calls.

Meister then moved on to the RFP, “So explain to me then why exactly we need the consultant?” Safriet said, “Because we don’t know what we don’t know. And so we don’t want to be proposing at the Staff level and with our deputies in the Sheriff’s Department, and with our healthcare and service providers, processes and protocols that we think will work, but that may have been tried in other agencies that have needed to be changed or updated, or that there are already better models in place. So we’re looking for some more specific expertise than we have at the Staff level.”

Meister returned to cost. She wanted to know what the City spends on the Care Team compared with the number of daily contacts Staff reported, noting that Healthcare in Action can provide more hands-on care in the field. Before the Council starts moving money from one contractor to another, she wants current information on who is living outside in West Hollywood now, including how many people are dealing mainly with mental illness, substance use, domestic violence or economic loss. The City did a needs assessment years ago. Meister said she wants a fresh picture of today’s unhoused population before the Council starts cutting or adding programs.

Byers backs “care first,” warns more arrests won’t fix what residents see

Mayor Chelsea Byers said she hears the same thing her colleagues hear, residents who keep seeing the same people in the same places and feel like nothing is moving. She also said she does not want the next step to be a push for more arrests.

Byers pointed out that when somebody with “a badge and a gun on their hip” tells someone to move, that is a “very significant threat in itself,” especially for people who have been through the justice system before. She said, “I don’t know that handcuffs and putting them into West Hollywood Sheriff’s Station ends up getting them into services any faster. I think it, in fact, it may risk breaking it. But I’m hearing that we have some really tough cases.”

She would rather see more money go into outreach and mental health staff, and into clear, regular information about how often those teams are out in the City and where they are working, and said she “appreciates the discussion around data, but as it was said, all the data in the world isn’t shifting the perception what’s happening out there… as the Staff report says tonight, only one in three homeless individuals would actually be able to go into a bed tonight. And that’s on a very rainy night in Los Angeles County. So we’re still under serviced in the way that we need. And I just recognize that that’s a real challenge. But I’m not interested in thinking about moving towards a deeper level of enforcement that would include the Sheriff’s Department moving its capacity and focus beyond what otherwise neighborhood level concerns look like right now.”

Council signs off on next steps

City Manager David Wilson repeated what he heard, stay in January’s LAHSA count, keep building out the Coordinated Response Framework, finish the consultant RFP, and bring back options early next year. Vice Mayor John Heilman put that into a motion, it passed 5-0, with Mayor Byers closing the item by thanking Staff, service providers and county partners for sticking through a long discussion.

You can catch the entire November 17, 2025 meeting below from WeHoTV or jump to the Homelessness Initiative Update discussion which begins at 1:10:30.