BY NICK DIAMANTIDES
Staff Writer
By refusing to second a motion made by 5th District Councilwoman Gerrie Schipske Tuesday night, a majority of the Long Beach City Council stood by its previous approval of an East Long Beach drop-in service center for the mentally-ill homeless. Schipske’s motion to rescind the approval died after more than an hour of testimony from proponents as well as opponents of the service center that is proposed for a one-acre site across the street from the Schroeder Hall Army Reserve Center at Willow Street and Grand Avenue. The Base Realignment and Closure Commission declared the 4.7-acre army reserve center as surplus in 2005. Later that year, Congress approved the center’s closure. The base’s current staff and operations are expected to transfer in 2011 to a new facility now under construction in the City of Bell.
When the federal government announced the base’s closure, Long Beach city officials began eyeing the site as the location for a new eastside police substation. However, the Base Closure Community Redevelopment and Homeless Assistance Act complicated the transfer of the property to the city. Under that federal law, if any homeless service agencies are interested in using a former military base, their needs must also be addressed.
After the announced closure, six different homeless service agencies submitted proposals for Schroeder Hall. In 2007, to comply with the federal law, and to enable the city to use the army reserve base for a new police substation, Schipske asked the council to approve a plan to use the one-acre site across the street for the homeless service center. That site is also adjacent to the city’s Department of Health and Human Services. The council approved that proposal in an 8—1 vote with only 4th District Councilman Patrick O’Donnell voting against it. In addition to approving the use of the one-acre site, the council chose Mental Health America of Los Angeles to operate the facility.
Since then, under pressure from her constituents, Schipske has withdrawn her support for the homeless center. However, under the federal law, if a local governmental entity is not willing or able to meet the needs of homeless service agencies interested in the base, the Army is bound to allow those organizations to use all or part of the land for homeless services.
Since 2007, local residents opposed to the proposed use have made their views known to the city council on several occasions. Last Saturday, O’Donnell, whose district sits just south of the proposed facility, and Mayor Bob Foster met with residents of the 4th and 5th Districts to discuss a number of issues including the proposed homeless service facility. “You have got to understand that we are so far down the timeline that if we were to kill this project, that property (the entire army reserve center) would be turned over to the federal government, which could then turn it into a huge homeless center,” O’Donnell said. “That’s another dangerous proposition. So we need to work with MHA to find some options to what is proposed now.”
The current proposal would allow MHA to develop a facility where the mentally-ill homeless could drop in for counseling and prescriptions. “We cannot just have homeless people walking up to the center with their shopping carts,” O’Donnell said. “They have to be bused in and bused out, because what will happen in my point-of-view is those people will try to live under the freeway and in the park.”
Foster stressed that the city cannot simply refuse to allow the development of a homeless services facility. “If the city withdraws its request for that property, the Army still has to accommodate the needs of the homeless service agencies,” he said. “The ultimate issue is how much control will we have. If we just give it over to the Army we will have no control at all over what happens there.”
“What we are trying to do is find an alternative site for those homeless services,” O’Donnell said. “That’s what we have to work on with MHA.”
Local realtor and resident Joe Sopo attended the informal Saturday meeting as well as the Tuesday night council meeting. He explained why he and many others are opposed to the center. “Of course we feel sorry for them and we know they need help, but these are not the kind of people anyone would want wandering through their neighborhood,” Sopo insisted. He explained that drop-in centers for the homeless mentally ill typically serve many clients who also have severe alcohol- and drug-addiction problems.
“There is no accountability,” he said. “They can come from anywhere, and anyone can drop them off,” he said. “I am asking people to look at a Frontline documentary video that shows the type of people that go to these type of centers,” he said. The video can be viewed at http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/released/stories.
At the Tuesday meeting, Schipske asked the council to rescind its prior approval of the homeless service center. For reasons noted above, the eight other councilmembers refused to do so.
