By LILA SEIDMAN | Reporter
The Pacific Palisades Task Force on Homelessness (PPTFH) announced Sept. 8 that they, along with Ocean Park Community Center (OPCC) and LAPD, will be focusing their efforts on the Village this month.
The decision to shift energy and resources away from the beach and bluff areas, many of which are high-risk fire areas, purposely coincides with the beginning of the new school year.
“Parents don’t like subjecting their children [to] this type of situation: a person laying on the street helpless, half-clothed, and having to walk by them and seeing urine and feces next to the person,” PPTFH member Sharon Kilbride told the Palisadian-Post.
The task force has already targeted six individuals in the area who will be engaged in a “soft manner” and offered services, said Kilbride.
Nancy Klopper, a PPTFH member who oversees the Village, outlined a few key focus areas in the area, including the library, Starbucks, recreation center and a ravine next to the recreation center. These aren’t “necessarily places that people live, they’re places that people hang out, because we don’t always know where they live,” Klopper explained.
In January, PPTFH began charting encampments and common panhandling areas using Google Maps, which are shared with the LAPD and OPCC.
“These maps are very, very valuable. They’ve been a great source for all parties,” Kilbride said. She explained that new people often move into encampments they clean up. Marked areas remain relevant even after a successful intervention.
The team’s efforts are working. Twenty-four people have been housed in the last six months, with seven in August alone, PPTFH reported at a Pacific Palisades Community Council meeting.
Maryam Zar, PPCC chair, was a founding chair of the organization who worked with one of the homeless people recently helped into a new life in a studio apartment in Pasadena—former Village resident Albert Angelo “Bert” Muto.
But the entire task force acknowledged it’s a never-ending process. As of August, the task force is aware of 86 extant encampments and 39 panhandling/loitering locations throughout the Palisades. Numbers rise during the summer months.
According to PPTFH member Patrick Hart, the fight against homelessness was significantly impacted by the task force’s partnership with OPCC and getting a set beach patrol team in LAPD officers John “Rusty” Redican and Quentin Blanton.
Previously, different officers came and went, and were not familiar with the local homeless population or the lay of the land. Last month, Hart pointed out that Redican identified three locations that the PPTFH members were not aware of.
PPTFH has been fully funded for 2016, but is still $22,000 short of its 2017 goals. It currently has no funding for its third year.
In about a week, the task
force will become a 5013c (nonprofit), which volunteer members hope will ease its financial uncertainties.
This page is available to subscribers. Click here to sign in or get access.
