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Life & Times Transcript
5/2/07 Val Zavala>> Tonight on Life and Times -- They don't like shelters and Skid Row is too dangerous. Could camping out be an answer for the homeless? Tina Barrett>> I chose River Haven because it's a safe spot. I didn't want to be in a program. I wanted to be here. I enjoy the camping. I enjoy this lifestyle. Val Zavala>> And then, whether it's cradling a cello or crashing a cymbal, something special happens when you turn third graders into an orchestra. It's all straight ahead on tonight's Life and Times. Announcer>> Life and Times is made possible through the generous support of the L.K. Whittier Foundation dedicated to improving the quality of life by supporting innovative endeavors in the fields of medicine, health, science and education. And by a generous grant from Jim and Anne Rothenberg. Val Zavala>> If you were a homeless person, where would you rather be? On the streets, in a shelter or in a campsite near a river? Well, it seems like a simple idea. Let people who don't have homes camp out in a natural area, and the city of Ventura is giving that idea a try. But as Hena Cuevas tells us, even good ideas have their limits. Hena Cuevas>> A few blocks from downtown Los Angeles, this is the picture of homelessness: people living on the streets in makeshift tents on Skid Row. But there is an alternative. Just a short hour drive away in the city of Ventura down an unmarked dirt road, you'll find this: a campsite. Tucked behind the daisies is River Haven, a tent city for the homeless run by the homeless. This is where thirty-one year old Tina Barrett came to live last year. Tina Barrett>> I chose River Haven because it's a safe spot. I didn't want to be in a program. I wanted to be here. I enjoy the camping. I enjoy this lifestyle. Hena Cuevas>> Two dozen people and about seventeen dogs live in River Haven. Tina Barrett>> This is just my baby. You know, he's part of my family. Hena Cuevas>> Barrett moved here with her four year old daughter after she was laid off in early 2006. She had a part-time job which allowed her to pay two hundred dollars a month into a communal account. That gave her the privilege of living in this campsite. Tina Barrett>> I look at it as my home. Other people look at it as a tent. I don't look at it as a tent. It's my home. Hena Cuevas>> The tents are also home to twenty-five other residents who all abide by strict rules: no alcohol or drugs. And the group votes on who stays and who goes. The land they're on belongs to the city of Ventura and is intended for recreation use. In 2004, about a hundred fifty squatters were living along the Ventura River, but according to City Manager, Rick Cole, the city was forced to move them out because of the threat of flooding. Rick Cole>> We needed to move people out of the riverbed and out of harm's way and it was a tumultuous, intense, emotional time as people really were afraid of losing the sense of community that they had developed in the riverbed. Hena Cuevas>> That winter, the river flooded to record levels. Many of the squatters had nowhere to go. They didn't want to stay in a shelter and were used to living outdoors, so the city gave them permission to use this land away from the river on a temporary basis. Rick Cole>> We thought, well, let's do this for a year and made no commitments one way or the other. We won't commit that it's over in a year. We won't commit that it will go a day past a year. Let's see how a year works. Hena Cuevas>> So in September 2005, the tents went up on higher ground. From the beginning, it was different from other shelters. For starters, residents are allowed to have pets and couples can stay together. Kim Devine>> It functions very much like a commune. Hena Cuevas>> Social worker, Kim Devine, works for Turning Point, the nonprofit that helps run River Haven. She says it may sound like a great place to live, but make no mistake, they're still living in a tent. Kim Devine>> No, this is not an easy thing. It's a heck of a lot easier to live in my neighborhood and go to a forty hour a week job on some levels than it is to be out here and try to do this, you know, with a disparate group of people and figuring out how to help everybody get along. Hena Cuevas>> Another example of transitional housing for the homeless was started here at the Dome Village near downtown in 1993. It's been around for almost thirteen years now, but will soon close its doors due to an increase in rent and it's unclear where these people will be going. However, officials in Ventura say that their plans for River Haven don't include having it around that long. Peter Brown>> Living in a tent forever is not a great solution for these people or for our community. Hena Cuevas>> Peter Brown is the manager of Community Services for the city of Ventura. Mark Single>> "Actually, one of the small tents would be one that size right there on the spot. That's the only one we can put in there and still leave a decent room right here so they could go down through here if they needed to." Peter Brown>> "Yeah, I don't think that will be a problem. That'll give you a little more room in here?" They continue to impress the city with their ability to be self-governing and to not engage in the behaviors that many homeless people are often hung with. Hena Cuevas>> River Haven has been around for a year and a half and, so far, he says there have been no major problems. Peter Brown>> We haven't had any police action out here, for example. If we were having a lot of police activity out here and illegal activity going on, we would look at this project a little bit differently. Rick Cole>> From the very beginning, they've made clear to us, "You've given us a chance and we are not going to blow it. We're going to make you proud." And they have. Hena Cuevas>> More than sixty percent of the residents are employed and most do move on like Barrett who left after eight months. Tina Barrett>> This is a stepping ground for me. It gave me a chance to save money. It gave me a chance to, you know, actually just gave me the chance to save money and get out of here. Hena Cuevas>> There's no limit to how long people can stay here, but according to Brown, some residents may be getting a little too comfortable here. Peter Brown>> Are there are some people that would want to live out here for the rest of their lives? Yeah, I think there probably are. We're early in this project and we haven't decided how we're going to handle that yet. I don't think we're entirely comfortable thinking that people are going to live out here for the rest of their lives. Mark Single>> "Then I made myself a bunk bed with our donations of plywood and stuff and two-by-fours and made a little storage underneath too." Hena Cuevas>> That's the case of thirty-nine year old Mark Single, one of the originals and now a leader of the group. He's on welfare and says River Haven gives him stability. Mark Single>> I'll be here for a while (laughter). For as long as this is going, I'll be here. If it keeps going, then I'll kind of back out and let the people run it, you know, but I want to be a part of it for as long as it can be. Peter Brown>> This is a coastal zone and it's also adjacent to a river and it's also a property that was deeded for recreational use, so building buildings on this property is actually not allowed. Hena Cuevas>> They will be here at least for another year. Last month, the city announced a one-year extension that will keep the camp until the end of March 2008. Rick Cole>> It's a chance for them, without distraction, to build and maintain that sense of community. So it's not an ideal location, but it has worked and, as long as it works, we're going to continue to support it. Hena Cuevas>> But this might be River Haven's final year. It's located on coastal property and any future extension will have to be cleared with the state. I'm Hena Cuevas for Life and Times. Announcer>> Kcet.org is the place to look for the very latest on Life and Times. You'll find previews of upcoming stories, plus transcripts and audio of past episodes and links to some of our most interesting features. Just go to kcet.org, scroll down the page and click on "Life and Times". Val Zavala>> Los Angeles police are cleaning up downtown's notorious Skid Row. Over the past few months, the crackdown has led to a thirty-five percent drop in crime and sixty percent fewer homeless people on the streets. But recently, a judge ruled that some of the police tactics were unconstitutional, specifically stopping them and searching them without probable cause. Are they going too far? At our Kitchen Table this week is Joe Hicks with CommUnity Advocates; LAPD Captain Andrew Smith who oversees police operations in downtown Los Angeles, including Skid Row; and Bob Erlenbush with the Los Angeles Coalition to End Hunger and Homelessness. He believes the police have been too tough on the homeless. The Kitchen Table is made possible by Ralph Tornberg. Joe Hicks>> Captain Smith, you recently wrote an Op Ed piece in the Los Angeles Times that kind of responded to something that the ACLU had written, an earlier piece about supposedly a crackdown in downtown. I guess the question is, what is this supposed crackdown producing in terms of reducing crime or even dealing with the issue of homelessness in downtown Los Angeles? Captain Andrew Smith>> Well, I think there's been a tremendous series of accomplishments. First of all, I hope the crackdown is not being mischaracterized as a crackdown on homelessness or on homeless people. I think of it as a crackdown on crime and criminal behavior and the culture of lawlessness that we had down there in the Skid Row for decades now. The fifty square blocks of Skid Row prior to our initiating the Safer Cities Task Force which is what we started here back in August was home to about thirty-eight hundred parolees, about four hundred thirty registered sex offenders. Virtually all the crime in downtown and virtually all the violent crime in downtown occurred in the Skid Row area or right next to it. Well, I think if you look at what's going on in Skid Row today year to date in 2007, thirty-seven percent decrease in crime which is three times the decrease of any other division in the city. We're leading the city in crime decreases all the way across all categories. If you look at what it's like for a person living on Skid Row or walking through there, it's been a huge change, a huge transformation. Joe Hicks>> Now, Bob, unless I'm wrong here, I think you might have a different take on what might be going on with what is presumed to be a crackdown. What do you think is being accomplished by these new efforts? Bob Erlenbush>> Well, with all due respect, because I know how hard you're working and know how your offices work, I'd like to think, you know, it's not mean-spirited. But at the end of the day, from our take, it really is a crackdown, quite frankly, that innocent, homeless people who have no other place to go because there just aren't enough shelter beds, A, and there's clearly not enough affordable housing. I mean, Skid Row is a nightmare of failure of public policy. We got sold, with all due respect, a bill of goods on the Safer Cities initiative. Lots of heavy emphasis on enforcement and -- I can't remember the exact way you said -- changing peoples' behavior. But also we were promised by the mayor and by Rocky Delgadillo that there would be services delivered as well. The way that's evolved has been all the arrests that we've already heard about, disbursing people to other parts of town, going to county jail, receiving almost seven thousand of what we would call "quality of life" tickets or citations. And then the social services piece is limping along. Captain Andrew Smith>> I'm in the law enforcement business, but there are other components to the Safer Cities initiative that get overlooked. One, as Bob was talking about, is an outreach component where not only do our officers walk with social workers, but we just got an increase in the number of social workers assigned to the station. We also have an enhancement portion which is all the other city services, the street lighting and the street maintenance and the trash pickup and all that other stuff. All those folks are out there now all coordinating and trying to do other things besides the law enforcement part. I'm in charge of the law enforcement part of that and we were the first part to go in because we thought we had to kind of change the culture of lawlessness that I described in order to make it safer for everybody. Bob Erlenbush>> People are being caught up in -- I know you don't like the word "sweeps", but they're sweeps to us. They're getting caught up. You can't tell me that there are, you know, five thousand drug dealers in Skid Row. Basically, there are a couple of thousand drug addicts who are now being swept up and, for a little tiny amount of drugs, our understanding is that, for a small amount of drugs, people are being rolled up on and saying, "Hey, we're going to get you for possession with intent to sell" which is a felony. Joe Hicks>> How do you respond to this notion that, you know, you guys not only just throw people against walls and harassing people? How do you react to this charge that this is, in many ways, simply harassment of sorts? Captain Andrew Smith>> Well, you know, you saw my editorial about that. First of all, let me say that I agree with Bob on a lot of the points he made. Certainly we don't spend enough money on housing. Certainly there's not permanent support of housing. There's not the kind of social services that other cities have. I agree with him that Skid Row is a disaster. It's a product of twenty or thirty years, maybe even more, of bad policy where all the folks that had mental health issues, drug addiction, alcohol addiction and other problems were all put into one kind of single place. After a while, and certainly when I got down there a couple of years ago, I thought to myself, "Geez, we can't allow other human beings to live like this. We just can't." So what we're doing is going after the criminal element. The idea behind Safer Cities is that we go after the criminal element that is hiding in this population, that is thriving in this population and that is preying on this population. Bob Erlenbush>> Look, you've given out almost seven thousand citations. A lot of those citations are to people who have no money in their pocket. It's seventy-five bucks. It's this vicious circle that you seem to have created where, you know, it goes to warrant and then, when you roll up on somebody and do a warrants check, sure enough they've got a warrant because they didn't pay the citation that you gave them in the first place. Why do that? Why create this downward spiral for people that's very difficult to crawl back out of? Captain Andrew Smith>> A couple of reasons. Number one, as I mentioned in my article, we write citations to change peoples' behavior. I personally earlier this year stood over the body of a homeless man who had been hit by a car because he was walking in the road. Virtually all of the traffic deaths that occur in downtown Los Angeles are because a pedestrian walks into the road. You know, there are simple rules. As the mayor said, we're a nation of laws. There are simple rules that need to be followed. The jaywalking, people walking in the roadway, littering. Tickets, you know, are certainly not done to pick on the homeless and certainly not done to try and create a warrant for them to go pick up later. It's to change peoples' behavior. Bob Erlenbush>> But it changes peoples' behavior at seventy-five dollars a pop who don't have money, so it goes to warrant. They might be picked up. We flood the county jails and people can't get jobs because they've got outstanding warrants. They can't get a driver's license. I mean, isn't there another more creative and I would say more humane way to change behavior rather than just giving you a ticket that you can't do anything with except suffer the consequences? Joe Hicks>> What's the answer to this chronic homelessness in a city like Los Angeles that Skid Row is probably unique in the nation? If you could wave some kind of magic wands, what's your answer to the ultimate problem here? Bob Erlenbush>> The answer to me is, you know, housing, housing and more housing. We do not have a mayor right now nor do did we have a mayor before that or the mayor before that who were committed. Our current mayor has made, you know, gangs and potholes and police the top priorities. Putting people in jail and putting people in state prison cannot be the mayor's legacy instead of our affordable housing program. Captain Andrew Smith>> Well, I agree with Bob that we do need more housing. There's not enough housing for all the people that are homeless downtown. Unfortunately, a lot of those folks that are homeless don't want to get into housing or don't want to get into some type of shelter and it takes a lot of prodding sometimes to get someone out from underneath the Sixth Street Bridge and get them into housing. Even if you were to offer them permanent supportive housing with a social worker, a lot of those folks -- Bob Erlenbush>> -- the first line of offering the services shouldn't be from a person who's wearing, in all respect, a gun and a badge. I mean, if you're the least bit paranoid schizophrenic which is the most common mental illness, of course, you're going to shrink back up under the Fourth Street Bridge. So you shouldn't be delivering social services. We want to cut you loose to go do what you signed on to do, which is go after people with unlawful behavior and not go after homeless people who, as the first line to offering social services, let social workers do their job. We can't ask the LAPD to be social workers. Joe Hicks>> Believe it or not, we're out of time, guys (laughter). Thanks for coming in and talking about this issue today. Appreciate it very much. Bob Erlenbush>> Thanks for having us. Joe Hicks>> Thanks. Val Zavala>> So what do you think? We'd love to know your response to that story and you can post it on our blog. Just go to kcet.org and click on the Life and Times Blog. Announcer>> To send a comment or a question to our program, you can reach us by mail at this address: Life and Times 4401 Sunset Blvd. Los Angeles, California 90027 You can also call our viewer comment line (323) 953-5555) or contact us the fast way by e-mail at kcet.org. Val Zavala>> All the research shows that music education develops young minds and helps kids learn, and yet most public schools have no regular music classes. Well, that's where a program in Pasadena comes in. It's been bringing music to kids for thirty years and, if there's any doubt that children love to get their hands on musical instruments, well, take a look at this. The minivan outside Willard Elementary School in Pasadena means that today third graders will be getting a break from the normal routine. Leo Kitajima>> "Good morning, ladies and gentlemen." Students>> "Good morning." Leo Kitajima>> "Today I will be your conductor and I will be introducing to you all of these different instruments that make up my symphony orchestra." Val Zavala>> It's a chance to set aside math and reading and try something different, new and exciting. Leo Kitajima>> "I'm sure all of you are wondering, "Hmmm, I wonder why these instruments are on different tables?" To be exact, there are four different tables." Val Zavala>> Leo Kitajima is a classical and jazz violinist, a USC grad who's now on the faculty of the Pasadena Conservatory of Music. He's performed with Stevie Wonder and Sir James Galway, but today these third graders are his musicians and he's the conductor. Leo Kitajima>> "I get to tell the musicians when to play, when not to play, how loud to play, how soft to play, how slow to play and how fast to play. I tell them everything." Val Zavala>> For most of these children, this is the first time they've even picked up a tuba. [Film Clip] Val Zavala>> Or a cello, a flute, and one of the all-time favorites, the cymbals. But what will they sound like after only a few minutes of experimenting? We'll find out in a moment. But first, they have to learn about the four families of orchestral instruments. Leo Kitajima>> "Just like each and every single one of you belongs to a family. You have a mom, dad, brother, sister, cats, dogs, hamsters and any other pets. These instruments belong together because they're somehow related." Val Zavala>> First are the woodwinds. Leo Kitajima>> "This is actually called a double reed. A double reed is actually two pieces of wood together and, when musicians blow air through it, it creates a vibration and this vibration creates the music. Let's take a listen to the oboe and the orchestra." Val Zavala>> Next, the brass family. Leo Kitajima>> "Here we have a mouthpiece which is detachable. When I buzz into this, it sounds like this. Sounds even funnier. But watch. If I place it on the trumpet, it sounds like this. See how my buzz actually can create beautiful music through this instrument? It's almost like magic. Let's take a listen to the trumpets to see how fast they can play." Val Zavala>> Third, the strings. Leo Kitajima>> "And this white part right here is made out of?" Students>> "Horsehair." Leo Kitajima>> "Very good. When I was in third grade, I had no clue. So let's say I'm meeting a horse for the first time, right? I go, "Oh, nice to meet you, Mr. Horse. My name is Mister K. Oh, it looks like you have some horsehair. Do you think we can borrow that?" Then we borrow it and we put it on the bow and, when I rub the horsehair against the string, it sounds like this." Val Zavala>> And finally, percussion. Leo Kitajima>> "The reason why this belongs to this family is because you have to strike the instrument in order to create sound. That's how it creates sound." Val Zavala>> The Pasadena Conservatory provides the teachers, but the funding comes from the Pasadena Showcase House for the Arts. Over more than thirty years, this program has introduced more than a hundred thousand youngsters to classical music. It's just one of three programs funded by the Showcase House. Jennifer Johnson is this year's president. Jennifer Johnson>> They come in, they're maybe skeptical and within moments, thanks to the energy of the teachers from the Pasadena Conservatory of Music, they really bring the whole program to life for these children. Val Zavala>> Okay. The instrument families have been introduced. Now the real fun begins. [Film Clip] Val Zavala>> It may sound like a cacophony to us, but it's music to the ears of Pasadena Conservatory's Beverly Lafontaine. Beverly Lafontaine>> We actually have in Pasadena in the unified school district a music teacher who was introduced to instruments because of this program years and years ago, and now she's been a music teacher for, I believe, close to nineteen years. Val Zavala>> Okay. The children have tried them all, strings, percussion, woodwinds and brass. The moment has finally arrived for their first full symphonic rehearsal -- with a little bit of backup from a recorded orchestra. [Film Clip] Leo Kitajima>> "Beautiful, fantastic. And we also really encourage you to listen to more music that uses these instruments. Once again, thank you very much and I hope to see you soon." Val Zavala>> The Music Mobile is supported by the Pasadena Showcase House and this year's home is spectacular. It's the twenty-seven room Boddy House at Descanso Gardens in La Canada. For ticket information, go their website at showcasehouse.org. And that's our program. I'm Val Zavala. Thanks for watching. We'll see you next time. Announcer>> Life and Times was made possible through the generous support of the L.K. Whittier Foundation dedicated to improving the quality of life by supporting innovative endeavors in the fields of medicine, health, science and education. And by a generous grant from Jim and Anne Rothenberg. Sponsored in part by:  | |
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