Safer Cities Initiative and the Trump Administration

On September 16th, the Council of Economic Advisors for the Trump Administration published this report, The State of Homelessness in America. An excerpt:

“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.” (Berk and MacDonald 2010, p. 817) Others have noted that policing may help determine rates of unsheltered homelessness as well. In his 1989 book, “Down and Out in America: The Origins of Homelessness”, University of Chicago sociologist Peter Rossi explains why unsheltered homelessness may have grown in the
1980s: “The `old’ homeless may have blighted some sections of the central cities, but from the perspective of urbanites they had the virtue of being concentrated on Skid Row, which one could avoid and hence ignore. Also, most of the old homeless had some shelter, although inadequate by any standards, and very few were literally sleeping on the streets. Indeed, in those earlier years, if people had tried to bed down on steam grates or in doorways and vestibules anywhere in the city, police patrols would have bundled them off to jail. The subsequent decriminalization of many status crimes, such as public inebriation and vagrancy — and the decreased emphasis on charges such as loitering has enlarged the turf homeless persons can claim.” (Rossi 1989, p. 34) In his 1996 book, “Making Room: The Economics of Homelessness,” Columbia University economist Brendan O’Flaherty notes that nonpunitive policing that seeks to move people off the streets and into services can be effective as well: “Aggressive but nonpunitive referral is a positive strategy; it has a record of reducing street homelessness and the attendant costs it imposes on other people” (O’Flaherty 1996, p. 280).
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.”

This is the first government public acknowledgment I’ve come across that the purpose of the Safer Cities Initiative was to remove tents/tent encampments from the streets of Skid Row. The argument in favor of SCI was the need for a major influx of officers to reduce violent crime in Skid Row with “broken windows” creating an atmosphere of obeying the law by cracking down on minor infractions.

This SCI summary by the Trump Administration is a game changer: an admission by the federal government that critics of SCI like LACAN were correct in saying SCI was created as a gentrification tool for development through displacement of folks on the streets. The land of Skid Row, 50 blocks, is worth billions of dollars.

Forrest Stuart, a Sociology professor with the University of Chicago, spent years on the streets of Skid Row during the years of SCI, 2006 to 2015, and published in 2016, Down Out and Under Arrest: policing and everyday life in Skid Row. While the Trump Administration says displacement of folks in tents/tent encampments was the driving force behind SCI, Stuart places SCI in a historic context of reward/punishment behaviors of the state towards the poor and homeless, what he calls “therapuetic policing”. An excerpt:

“As federal, state, and local governments continue to purge welfare rolls, eliminate housing programs, and privatize service provision, the police are increasingly tasked with day-to-day management of the growing number of citizens falling through the holes in the threadbare social safety net. Contrary to many of our assumptions about policing, these interventions are not simply intended to lock up the poor and throw away the key. Rather, they reflect what I term therapeutic policing — a paternalistic brand of spatial, behavioral, and moral discipline designed to “cure” those at the bottom of the social hierarchy of the individual pathologies deemed responsible for their abject circumstances.”

SCI in Skid Row went from 2006 to 2015. It was replaced by RESET — Resources Enhancement Services Enforcement Team. But even though SCI was replaced by RESET, with a reduction in citations for things like jaywalking and sitting on the sidewalk, emails from 2018 surfaced by michaelkohlhaas.org through the California Public Records Act indicate SCI is making a comeback. The emails:

“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.”

Apparently a displacement agenda and therapeutic policing have merged and what’s emerged is more sophisticated than the experiences of 2006 to 2015. The HOPE Teams and 41.18 are recent examples of partnership between elected officials, the LAPD, and social service providers. And now add the Council of Economic Advisers for the Trump Administration.