LA offers Skid Row homeless leniency on citations
LOS ANGELES — Some 200 homeless people wait outside a Skid Row shelter, clutching citation slips for minor offenses: jaywalking, sitting on a curb, pushing around shopping carts.In the past, many would have faced stiff fines and possible arrest for neglecting the tickets. But now they are eager to settle the cases with prosecutors, who are offering to forgive the infractions in exchange for four hours of community service.
Authorities hope the new city program will ease a backlog of citations clogging the courts and resolve a nettlesome debate over ticketing people in the nation's densest concentration of homeless.
"It's a good deal," said Charles Gregory, a 47-year-old disabled man who lives on Skid Row and has two tickets for fare evasion on a commuter train. "These are $200 apiece. I can't pay that. I live in a homeless shelter."
The Los Angeles city attorney's office launched the project four months ago by posting fliers around the neighborhood announcing monthly "citation clinics."
About 500 tickets were erased after the first two clinics. Defendants could choose chores such as sweeping, serving meals, and attending support meetings for alcoholics and drug addicts.
"We're making it so people can stay out of the court system, but we're not giving it away," said Songhai Miguda-Armstead, an assistant city attorney who oversees the program. "It is a special population that needs a little more care."
Tickets have been a sore point in Skid Row since the Police Department poured 50 extra officers into the square-mile neighborhood three years ago. The initiative was aimed at cleaning up a squalid, drug-ridden area inhabited by 5,000 homeless residents.
At least half are mentally ill, and many are addicts and parolees. Some just have nowhere else to turn except the conglomeration of shelters, transient housing and rehab centers.
In such a bastion of hard luck, locals say it's unfair for their plight to be made worse with tickets.
"It's harassment," said a lanky man who gave his name as Mr. Red D. He figured he had three jaywalking tickets but wasn't sure. "I shouldn't even have these tickets," he said.
Advocates say ticketing homeless people is meaningless because they rarely have the money to pay fines that average $150 per infraction. They often end up ignoring the citations only to get ticketed again.
The result is a spiral that can turn a loitering ticket into an arrest warrant and jail sentence. Unpaid tickets can also surface when people try to get their lives back together: They show up in background checks for jobs and driver's license renewals.
"These are people who have to figure out where they're going to get their next meal from. How are they going to show up for a court date?" asked Orlando Ward, spokesman for the Midnight Mission, which hosts the citation clinic.
Some 19,000 tickets have been issued in Skid Row since police stepped up their patrols. But authorities insist that ignoring minor infractions soon creates an unruly atmosphere where major crime flourishes.
As he strode around Skid Row's teeming streets, officer Deon Joseph noted that crime in the area has dropped 36 percent since the crackdown began.
"Just because you're homeless doesn't mean you can do whatever you want," Joseph said.
He paused to tell a man drinking from a beer can in a paper bag to pour it out, and he directed others sitting on upside-down buckets to get up, making an exception for a woman with a walker.
"I got to have law and order," he said, moments before jogging down the block to assist with a drug bust.
Joseph acknowledged some young officers can be overzealous ticket-writers but said there's also flexibility. Street sleeping is permitted between 9 p.m. and 6 a.m., seriously mentally ill people are taken for help, and others are given warnings, he said.
The city attorney runs two other programs for homeless defendants: Those charged with misdemeanors can have their cases dismissed if they complete a 21-day rehabilitation program to address addiction or mental illness, and those convicted of misdemeanors can serve their sentence in residential rehab instead of jail.
For Joseph, such programs are compassionate law enforcement. "It's giving people a second chance," he said.
At the citation clinic, many people felt the tickets were unfair but were grateful they had a shot at erasing them.
Elmer Barahona said he wanted to clear a 2-year-old public drunkenness ticket and a year-old jaywalking citation so he could start anew. He was recently released from jail to enter rehab after a crack cocaine bust.
"I didn't take care of the tickets," the 38-year-old said. "I was abusing drugs, I was homeless."
Prosecutors looked up Barahona's record and directed him to sign up to read books to children.
Barahona acknowledged he hasn't accomplished many goals in his life but vowed to complete the community service. "I'm going to do it," he said. "I don't want to be arrested again."
(This version CORRECTS that program started four months ago, not three.)
