Second Federal Court Hearing Set For Thursday in Efforts to Shelter L.A. County Homeless

Attorneys from both the county and the city of Los Angeles are expected Thursday morning to address what a federal judge refers to as “structural racism” that he believes created and sustains the sprawling Skid Row area of downtown Los Angeles.

U.S. District Judge David O. Carter wrote in April that the city and county of Los Angeles “created a legacy of entrenched structural racism,” leaving Black people —and especially Black women — “effectively abandoned on the streets. Such governmental inertia has affected not only Black Angelenos, not only homeless Angelenos, but all Angelenos — of every race, gender identity, and social class.”

The judge said that virtually “every citizen of Los Angeles has borne the impacts of the city and county’s continued failure to meaningfully confront the crisis of homelessness. The time has come to redress these wrongs and finish another measure of our nation’s unfinished work.”

Thursday’s proceedings are part of a year-old lawsuit lodged against the city and county by the L.A. Alliance for Human Rights, a group made up of downtown business owners and Skid Row residents who contend that local government had mismanaged the homelessness crisis and wasted public money while the number of people living on the streets — thought to be over 60,000 — increases.

The hearing comes a day after a status conference in which county and city lawyers discussed a June 2020 agreement to provide beds and services for people living near local freeways. The court also is considering whether to reinstate a preliminary injunction — now on hold — to protect those individuals experiencing homelessness currently camping near highway overpasses, underpasses and ramps.

Fed up with a lack of momentum in the year-old case, Judge Carter said in April that the city and county of Los Angeles must offer housing to the homeless population of Skid Row by the middle of October.

A federal appeals court put an administrative hold on the judge’s decree pending the conclusion of back-to-back hearings Wednesday and Thursday to discuss possible modifications to his order, financial arrangements to pay for homeless housing and other issues.

Although an agreement was reached in June last year to provide an additional 6,700 beds over the following 16 months, with funding for five years thereafter, impetus bogged down in disagreements and inaction, court papers show.

In May last year, Carter ordered Los Angeles authorities to move thousands of homeless people away from freeways and ramps because of such deadly hazards as pollutants, passing cars and potential earthquakes. The temporary injunction — which was subsequently put on hold to allow the city and county to develop their own plan — was meant to compel county and city governments to provide alternative shelter to 6,000 to 7,000 indigent people.

Carter’s pending April order set a timetable for offers of shelter to be made to between 2,000 and 4,000 homeless people living on the streets of Skid Row by October. The sprawling 50-block area just blocks from Staples Center contains one of the largest populations of indigent people in the nation.