Council Starts Looking Where A 30-Bed Shelter Can Be Placed In Malibu

Malibu council members have taken it on themselves … to find a place where a tightly-controlled homeless sleeping area can be located in our city.

The plan … a room with enough space for 30 mats on the floor … at a cost of 600 thousand dollars a year.

They call it an A S L … Alternative Sleeping Location.

If the ASL homeless sheletr is established … the sheriff could then cite and remove people camping or sleeping in public.

There would be would be zero homeless encampments permitted anywhere in the city.

At the ASL … computers and showers would mean library and other public spaces would no longer be messy and dirty …. with people living in them.

Less trash pollution and persona items.

A location ??? T-B-A.

At last night’s city council meeting on homelessness … the city council members say their hand has been forced.

Every city in California is going to have to set up facilities for people sleeping in public … either by court order or by a pending new law …

That is the way mayor Mikke Pierson reads it.

The council rejected strident arguments made by one city council member … that all the lawyers at the county are wrong.

Bruce Silverstein contends that political correctness is coloring those lawyers’ interpretation of recent federal court decisions ..

He says those lawyers are pandering to the “homeless industrial complex.” .

NEWSCART 73293 BS HANDS ARE TIED

“Federal … state … county and local politicians who claim they can’t protect the residents without building shelters or A S Ls or providing other benefits to the unhoused population garner the votes of the progressive left while avoiding the loss of support from others … because they take political cover that their hands are tied.”

Silverstein says that if the sheriff will not enforce the city’s anti-camping ordinance … then the city should sue the sheriff.

Malibu pays the sheriff’s office 8 million dollars a year for their services … which includes enforcing the city ordinances …. Silverstein notes.

Mayor Mikke Pierson says suits have already been filed … over the sheriff ousting homeless persons.

NEWSCART 73287 MP AND THEY LOST

“To everyone that wants the L A County sheriff to be more aggressive in enforcing the laws that they aren’t now due to the guidance from the district attorney’s office … the reason is simple … they have been sued and they lost.”

But the council went along with the widespread legal interpretation of the U-S Constitution … as voiced in the Martin versus Boise decision …

Acting city attorney John Cotti.

NEWSCART 73290 JOHN COTTI LYING IN PUBLIC

“The Martin case holds that the Eighth Amendment prohibits the government from criminalizing conduct .. naming sleeping oudoors … that would effectivelty criminalize the status of being homeless.

“Specifically so long as there is a greater number of homeless individuals in a jurisdiction than are the available number of beds in shelters … the jurisdiction cannot prosecute homeless individuals from involuntarily sitting … lying or sleeping in public.”

A federal judge is interpreting that to mean a city must take practical steps … provide housing for about 60 percent of the homeless people within its limits … in order to enforce “no camping” rules.

Paul Davis … a Malibu Homelessness Task Force volunteer … says a similar plan worked in Laguna Beach.

NEWSCART 73291 PAUL DAVIS TRANSITION TO PERMANENTN HOUSING SOMEWHERE.

“The improvement was drastic and almost immediate.

“Residents quickly saw a drastic .. dramatic reduction in trash and encampment … night and day.

“And many of the homeless were able to transition to permanent housing somewhere.”

Last night … the city council voted unanimously to task themselves … the five city council members …. to try to find a place for the shelter.

Ideally … 30 people would be housed.

It would have computers and showers …. keeping homeless persons out of the library.

There would be a green zone around it … loitering and sleeping in that area striuctly banned.

And that would allow deputies to oust persons setting up camp in public elsewhere inthe city.

Either homeless persons in tents … or opportunist RV owners looking for a beach holiday … clould be removed.

It was envisioned as a place where some monbile structures could be parked …. home.

Silverstein doesn’t like that concept.

NEWSCART 73292 BS INCENSED BY THAT DYNAMIC

“Like any other community we do have a moral obligation … I believe … to care for our residents who have fallen on hard times and who care capable of being helped to get back on their feet.

“I do not think there are any people who meet that description in Ma;libu.

“Maybe there is a handful … maybe.

“Nobody has identified them.

“With rare exception …the unhoused population in Malibu has migrated to Malibu from other communities that have failed or refused to help them’

“In that sense … Malibu is being asked to pick up the financial tab for other cities that have refused to do so.

It is not selfish or otherwise inappropriate for Malib residents to be incensed by that dynamic.”

But the federal judge is interpreting the U-S constitution as to cover every homeless person in any city … not just residents of that city.

And the city would eb obligated to offer the alternative sleeping location to any person found sleeping in public in the city.

Pierson stressed that the shelter would serve Malibu residents first …

The 30 beds would not be permanent homes.

Dawn Price is the director of the shelter in Laguna Beach .. she also was speaking at last night’s city council meeting.

NEWSCART 73286 DAWN PRICE IS AROUND 90 DAYS

“Some of these concerns are … `well we have these 30 beds and what if more people come?’

“Well you have to have movement through your program.

“You have to have people working with your shelter guests … helping them make housing plans.

“Helping them take action on those plans.

“Bringing in resources in .. so that people can go into housing.

“And moving people through those beds so you can turn those beds over a clouple times a year.

“Our average length of stay for people who get housing … is around 90 days.”

That’s in Laguna Beach.

Dawn Price is the director of the shelter down there.

Their shelter program is being viewed as a template for Malibu.

In the end … mayor Mikke Pierson said … the city has to do something if they want to get rid of campers on the side of Pacific Coast Higheway … and homeless in the gullies.

Pierson predicts that … if the city doesn’t take responsibility … someone else will order the city to do it … at a much greater cost.

NEWSCART 73288 SITUATION BUT HERE WE ARE

“I strongly believe … the federal and state government have a huge responsibility here that they are not upholding

“And I want to remain hopeful that they do their job and step up.

“I think it is unfair that we are left here in this situation.

“But here we are.”

Where???

That is the big question.

The city council members voted to talk to their constituents … look at potential sites … and come back in a month.

.