Safer Cities Initiative and the Past Few Weeks
Has an updated version of Safer Cities Initiative (SCI) been created? Is an updated version of SCI in the process of being created?
Here are emails from June 2018 by michaelkohlhaas.org through the California Public Records Act:
“Subject ‘safer cities initiative’: From Gita O’Neill to Captain Marc Reina-Monday June 18, 2018 2:41pm…Hi`-I am at the HOPE/SLO training today and Chief Moore said he was in favor of this old program. It used to be a great program and I think only ended because of funding (lack of bc of the recession). The attorney who ran the program is still in the office. Would you all like to have a brainstorming session with him on what worked and didn’t with this quasi diversion program in Skid Row? Thanks, Gita — From Captain Marc Reina to Gita O’Neill -Monday June 18, 2018 2:46pm…Yes, thanks.
In his 2016 book, “Down and Out and Under Arrest: Policing and Everyday Life in Skid Row”, University of Chicago sociology professor Forrest Stuart divides modern Skid Row into two time periods.
The first time period, Policy of Containment, led by the LA Catholic Worker and Alice Callaghan of Skid Row Housing Trust, consisted of Skid Row becoming the center of social services for the poor and homeless along with government-financed nonprofits renovating historic SRO hotels as housing for the poor.
The second time period began in the late 1990’s with an alliance between Jan Perry’s office, the Business Improvement Districts, LAPD, and what Stuart calls the mega-missions. That alliance created the Safer Cities Initiative (broken windows) beginning in 2006. In 2015, SCI was replaced by RESET (Resources Enhancement Services Enforcement Team). SCI left a legacy of street-based trauma.
C3 was a Skid Row collaborative effort (County*City*Community) beginning in 2015 as a dialogue and became a County-led street outreach. C3 did not have Police Officers on the outreach teams. The reason is simple: street homelessness is traumatic by nature and you do not reach out to traumatized folks with a team member carrying a gun or wearing a uniform symbolizing a gun. Any medical professional will tell you that’s a no brainer.
From the September paper “State of Homelessness in America“ by the Trump Administration Council of Economic Advisers released just prior to President Trump and HUD Secretary Carson coming to California, with Secretary Carson coming to Skid Row: “Some States more than others engage in more stringent enforcement of quality of life issues like restrictions on the use of tents and encampments, loitering, and other related activities. In addition, Berk and MacDonald (2010) note that the 2006 Safer Cities Initiative in Los Angeles, which intended to remove encampments in Skid Row, did so successfully, albeit temporarily: ‘The immediate goals of the SCI [Safer Cities Initiative] were demonstrably achieved. The Skid Row homeless encampments were cleared. The concentration of homeless individuals was dispersed. The debris they left behind was removed.’
Of course, policies intended solely to arrest or jail homeless people simply because they are homeless are inhumane and wrong. At the same time, when paired with effective services, policing may be an important tool to help move people off the street and into shelter or housing where they can get the services they need, as well as to ensure the health and safety of homeless and non-homeless people alike. More research is needed to understand how different policing policies affect the outcomes of homeless people — including their ultimate destinations, mental health, drug use, employment and other dimensions of wellbeing — as well as outcomes for non-homeless people.”
Regarding this reports references to SCI, in Chief Beck’s seven page March 2011 report to the Police Commission in response to the December 2010 report by Los Angeles Community Action Network Community-Based Human Rights Assessment: Skid Row’s Safer Cities Initiative, Chief Beck never refers to removing tent encampments in Skid Row as an intention or goal of SCI.
Two major developments have recently taken place in the City and County. 41.18 in the Homelessness and Poverty Committee/City Council as an expression of Martin vs. Boise, and the recent 3 to 2 decision by the County Board of Supervisors with City Attorney support along with major Skid Row service providers The People Concern and Weingart recommending Martin vs. Boise be appealed to the Supreme Court could easily be aligned with the idea of a revamped SCI.
The question — to what extent are:
1) 41.18
2) the County encouraging the Martin case be appealed
3) the Trump Administration report on Homelessness referencing SCI
the result of the June 2018 emails between the City Attorney’s office and LAPD where they decided to take a fresh look at SCI?
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Native American leader Mark Charles is running for President based on an indigenous worldview. Charles is part of the D.C. church pastored by Delonte Gholston. Gholston used to be on staff with New City church and was the key person behind the Trust Talks, a church-led effort to create dialogue between Downtown residents and stakeholders and the LAPD with an emphasis on Skid Row.
From a recent yahoo news article about Charles:
“Charles believes he is the best person to lead the country as a whole, but he is also running with some ideas that would specifically help Native Americans, African Americans and other people of color. On the stump he talks a lot about creating a ‘common memory’ — educating people on the atrocities committed in the past and the challenges different races face.
At the center of Charles’s platform is the establishment of a ‘truth and conciliation commission’, which would work towards creating that memory. His idea is modeled on the Truth and Reconciliation Commission set up in South Africa, after the end of apartheid.
‘I don’t call ours truth and reconciliation because reconciliation implies a previous harmony, and if you know our history you know that’s not true.’
In South Africa the Truth and Reconciliation committee hearings, which allowed both victims and perpetrators to explain their experiences, were broadcast live, in what has been described as the “gold standard” for how a divided society might deal with a violent past.”