Part 86: The LA Alliance Comes Up Empty – Understanding Justice and Care for the Unhoused in Los Angeles

Published March 8, 2024

and

Mar 09, 2024

Photo of the blighted Oceanwide Plaza towers in downtown Los Angeles recently tagged with graffiti being further sealed off with LAPD watching by author (GoPro Hero 11 Black).

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By “Rooflesser”

Ruth

and Zachary “Obama” Ellison, Independent Journalists

In a Federal court hearing on Thursday March 8 in Downtown Los Angeles, Judge David O. Carter appeared skeptical of the punitive request made for a $6.4 million dollar fine made by the Los Angeles Alliance for Human Rights, saying that it made him “uncomfortable.” The City Attorney’s Office under Hydee Feldstein-Soto opposed the move with Chief Assistant Deputy Attorney Scott Marcus arguing that the group, which is composed of business interests, is acting as a special interest in seeking to both monitor the city’s response to the crisis and wanting to get paid for it. "Our ultimate goal isn't handing out peanut butter,” said Judge Carter about the monetary demand. Judge Carter is known for his sense of humor as well as bullishness.

The LA Alliance was represented principally by attorney’s Elizabeth Mitchell and Mathew Umhofer of the firm Umhofer, Mitchell & King LLP. The firm brands itself online saying that “David didn’t beat Goliath by overcoming the odds – he changed the odds,” before quipping “That’s what we do.” They further claim that “Lots of folks litigate. And innovate. And win” as well as self-describing themselves as “strategically disruptive.” The response to the LA Alliance’s claim that the City wasn’t addressing the crisis has in no small part been Mayor Karen Bass’s Inside Safe operation launched in December 2022 after her election as Mayor. The program remains controversial due to its limited results and high cost, routinely poked at, but also the primary effort being made with both the endorsement of the Mayor and the support of City Council.

The results of the LA Alliance settlement so far have been the implementation of LAMC § 41.18 in thousands of “Sensitive Zones” and enforcement areas around the City and the construction of thousands of City-funded interim shelter beds. The Mayor’s Inside Safe program, which makes use of hundreds of motel rooms to draw unhoused people indoors during “sweep” operations, also helps the City work toward the goals of the settlement, principally the housing of at least 60% of unhoused individuals in each Los Angeles City Council district as part of a collective effort by local government. Addressing this crisis is by far the #1 policy issue in Los Angeles.

Another goal of the settlement is the creation of 3,000 “mental health beds”. If this goal seems odd, it may make more sense in the context of Men’s Central Jail’s eventual closure. MCJ is known to probably be the largest mental health facility in the world. While that doesn’t seem related to the housing issue, it certainly relates to the downtown business interests’ stake in the issue of homelessness, which will presumably be made worse if the jail shuts down. The Los Angeles Board of Supervisors previously voted 4-1 in 2021 for closure according to an Annenberg Media report “because of inhumane conditions that some describe as ‘living hell.’”

Developers in “DTLA” want to build more unaffordable housing, but they don’t want to also build units affordable to the unhoused people living in tents on Skid Row. Central City Association (CCA) has erected nearly 20,000 new housing units and hotel rooms in the last decade, according to them, with only <3% of them being “affordable” to people making the Area Median Income (AMI), and even fewer subsidized units that are truly sustainable for people living in tents on Skid Row. Despite the revitalization of downtown under former LA City Councilmember José Huizar and the nominal efforts of Kevin de León, the area retains an exceptionally high unhoused population. Skid Row is the largest concentration of people living in poverty in the country. Changing life in a place like Skid Row clearly cannot be accomplished by a lawsuit alone!

The few new Permanent Supportive Housing (PSH) units that were produced were court-ordered. Others were “created” by Aids Healthcare Foundation (AHF) through adaptive reuse and hundreds were renovated and reopened like the Cecil Hotel, but they do not count as “new” units because they’re not new. All truly new PSH and “affordable” units have also been offset by the loss of residential hotel units by demolition, closure, or conversion to “transient” hotels (hotels that host tourists for less than 30 days at retail prices). Critical in the redevelopment of Downtown Los Angeles has been developer Izek Shomof, who created the LA Alliance and hired Elizabeth Mitchell as its attorney for the principal purpose of the lawsuit. It’s unclear what other philanthropy the 501(c)(3) group engages in that would provide direct services to the unhoused population.

According to a City News Service Report by journalist Fred Shuster, attorney Elizabeth Mitchell for the LA Alliance told Judge Carter: "The Alliance is in no way convinced that the city will do what it promised…These beds have to be produced, people have to be protected." Per Shuster’s report, Mitchell also told the court that 2,000 people died on the streets of Los Angeles in the past 14 months and “suggested that the city should be fined $100,000 per week until it met its deadlines.” This is happening even as Los Angeles faces a budget crisis that has resulted in a recent hiring freeze for non-essential city workers defined as everyone who is not a police officer, firefighter or homelessness services or prevention worker.

The shortage of housing navigators is one of the main bottlenecks preventing Inside Safe from being a fully effective homelessness solution. It’s not meant for people to live in motel rooms forever, but rather to link them to affordable market-rate housing programs like Self-Help and Recovery Exchange (SHARE!) and Guaranteed Income (GI) Pilot Program subsidies, or permanently subsidized Section 8 or Veterans Affairs Supportive Housing (VASH) housing, Department of Mental Health (DMH), Housing Opportunities for Persons With Aids (HOWPA) or Housing for Health programs, etc. That’s a lot of acronyms to swallow! These key components to permanently resolving “encampments”– long-term affordability, true accessibility, and the flexibility and forgiveness required to heal deep housing insecurity and trauma caused by displacement and dispossession aren’t addressed in the lawsuit. Nor will progress on these issues be made in “beds” in locked facilities.

Inside Safe pays service providers double what it pays motels, and in some cases, it’s actually paying Residential Hotel Unit Conversion and Demolition Ordinance (RHO) buildings double what is legal, then paying the nonprofit operators double that amount. Some of the Homeless Emergency Account money went towards acquiring 300 units at the Mayfair Hotel, but those units also aren’t going to be used to provide permanent housing. The service provider contract states that a special waiver is required to stay beyond six months. Interim housing basically guarantees returns to homelessness without paired investments in keeping people indoors.

Chief Assistant City Attorney Scott Marcus apologized for the “delay” in progress asserting that "Yes, it took the city longer than it should have” and claiming that the settlement agreement had not yet been breached. Marcus further stated that "The city is fully transparent about what it's doing. And fully transparent about (saying), `We're not there yet” which is a sentiment that almost all of Los Angeles would surely agree with based on the visibility of the problem. This along with the available statistics that remain in dispute about the scale of the problem and the effectiveness of Inside Safe, plus the City’s overall preceding efforts to address what everyone agrees is a human rights crisis even as the means to resolve it remain highly debated within the advocate community.

Judge Carter had approved the settlement “on the condition that he closely oversee the city and county's progress in meeting their deadlines and goals,” which might seem unusual at first to many court watchers. Carter has previously presided over an antecedent lawsuit in Orange County brought forward by Bill Taormina, a developer and waste management professional, who inspired Izek Shomof to create the LA Alliance and has partnered with him on his proposed Life Rebuilding Center to redevelop the now empty Sears, Roebuck & Company Mail Order Building. The location has sat mostly empty since 1992. Shomof only has half of the money he needs to fund the project at present, $200 million out of an estimated $400 million needed for the building renovation.

Things came to a head on Day 2 of the LA Alliance hearing on Friday March 8 with Patrick Wizmann, the brother-in-law and former business partner of Shomof openly challenging the premises of the requested $6.4 million dollar fine. Wizmann also is concerned about the Sears project on the basis that it amounts to inurement, self-enrichment at the expense of the taxpayers. Wizmann, who has decided to turn whistleblower after having filed a lawsuit against Shomof over his recent book Dreams Don’t Die distributed by Simon & Schuster as well as property fraud disputes at two locations and breach of contract plus defamation. Those lawsuits are now in the discovery stage of litigation. Wizmann isn’t letting that hold him back though as a whistleblower! Who are we to decline someone who wants to bring forward the truth?

After rising to speak, Judge David Carter left Courtroom 1 as Wizmann challenged Elizabeth Mitchell in the presence of Scott Marcus over the grounds for the requested fine given the contents of Dreams Don’t Die allegedly indicating that Shomof is both the driving force behind the lawsuit and potentially its biggest beneficiary if the Sears property turns into the Life Rebuilding Center. Mitchell said that she had heard of the book, but “didn’t read it,” before leaving the Courtroom to call Shomof directly from the hallway according to Wizmann. Don Steier, the Chair of the LA Alliance, was stunned by the challenge from Wizmann as he presented the relevant pages as well as the Court documents indicating Shomof had omitted a prior criminal conviction from the book while proclaiming his greatness. Mitchell wouldn’t accept the documents. Whether Dreams Don’t Die is pulled from shelves remains to be seen.

Patrick Wizmann wasn’t convinced that the project, which started out as a proposed 10,000 beds, before being reduced to 5,000 and then down to 2,500 again was wise, telling Mitchell that it sounded a little bit like warehousing the homeless to which she replied: “it’s a big place.” Wizmann got a dirty look for the exchange from Mitchell, but Scott Marcus and his deputies took photographs of the relevant book pages as well as accepting copies of the records and the two articles to date by independent journalist Zachary Ellison on Izek Shomof and the LA Alliance.

Elizabeth Mitchell responded to a request for comment on the showdown with Patrick Wizmann in court this morning by questioning the “goal” of this series, stating that Shomof “has no leadership role at all in the Alliance—he is not on the board or any other committee providing direction.” Mitchell continued by attesting to the character of Shomof, a “good person” and vouching for the purpose of the LA Alliance, saying “He’s not alone in that frustration, and is indeed joined by all other members of the Alliance calling for accountability and pushing for the City and County to do better and more to bring people inside and off the streets.” Really?

Her response then took a rude turn, attacking suddenly: “If your goal is to tarnish the reputation of the man [Izek Shomof], I can’t help you with that.” Where the rest of the financing for the Life Rebuilding Center would come from is unclear, and Shomof would need the City and County of Los Angeles to operate the proposed facility, which many see as so-called “warehousing” of the unhoused with “behavioral” challenges such as minor to moderate marijuana use and mental health issues. The challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic, for which the unhoused were and are particularly vulnerable, and other highly contagious infectious diseases like MRSA, which tend to disproportionately plague the unhoused community, would certainly be a nightmare in such a dense setting. Should the Life Rebuilding Center be built?

That is where Governor Gavin Newsom’s Proposition 1 comes in! The $6 billion dollar bond measure would fund the creation of three locked State hospital facilities for thousands of people with behavioral health challenges. It would be repaid at nearly $10 billion dollars, enriching bond holders like the millionaires and billionaires that were affected by the “Millionaire’s Tax.” The 1% tax on income over $1M is supposed to fund community mental health solutions like LA County DMH’s outreach programs, unarmed crisis response and clinics, and it currently does, but Proposition 1, if passed, will defund these “upstream” resources in favor of crisis interventions like locked hospital beds. “Warehousing” people in these settings can be extremely profitable.

In Rob Wipond’s book, Your Consent is Not Required, he estimates that even on public health insurance, each person who is being detained in a hospital setting where they are being treated for symptoms of mental illness (treatment primarily consists of being medicated with psychotropics) can bring in $840/day/bed (or $35/hour, on average). That’s also a lot of potential jobs to be filled by people like the corrections officers that will be laid off when Men’s Central Jail finally closes. Proposition 1 was still too close to call 3 days after the March 5 Super Tuesday elections with 50.3% in favor and 49.7% against, and a difference of about 30,000 ballots out of nearly 4.5 million cast with only 57.35% of the vote recorded as of mid-day Friday afternoon in Los Angeles.

How California addresses its homelessness crisis, much less in Los Angeles remains in dispute even as questions about how it’s funded swirl. Judge David Carter had seen and heard enough after a day and a half of hearings including testimony from City Controller Kenneth Mejia after a morning phone call between Judge Carter, Mayor Karen Bass and Council President Paul Krekorian. Both politicians were away in Paris to prepare for the 2028 Olympics, including in relation to homelessness policy, according to a report by journalist Jamie Paige of the Westside Current. Judge Carter noted that more than “$600 million was distributed to city provider programs between 2017 and 2019 without proper documentation.” Shocking, right? In a city with so much wealth, not only has the city failed to address the crisis, but more money than ever before is being spent with the meaning of the outcomes in open public dispute between LAist and Council Krekorian.

Judge Carter after expressing his concerns about the situation, and the lack of accountability, called for a Memorandum of Understanding regarding the LA Alliance case on top of an independent investigation to be led by Bass and Mejia, “with the court’s oversight.” What happens with this review of progress to date, and the related expenditures in a City like Los Angeles remains to be seen, but it points to bigger concerns about continuing corruption, including in relation to Inside Safe, as well as future plans for capital projects like the Life Rebuilding Center in Boyle Heights.

In the end, the LA Alliance coming up empty is bittersweet justice for those living on the street, who need direct care as well as long-term housing, and not criminalization and warehousing. The next court date is scheduled for March 18, with 30 days granted to create a new MOU. As for the $6.4 million, Judge Carter hadn’t approved it today, and it seems even more unlikely that the LA Alliance will get a sweetener on top for its legal services. I guess lawyers have to make money too as they say in business. LA Alliance provides no direct services to the unhoused population, so how can they claim to be “pushing” for anything but themselves, do we really need the group to hold the government to account? Los Angeles may be short on housing, but certainly not chutzpah or lawyers.

Link: Roofless Substack

Link: Hearing to Continue on Proposed Sanctions Over LA Homeless Encampments

Link: Umhofer, Mitchell & King LLP

Link: Why is LA’s central jail still standing?

Link: Meet the Israeli-born developer who wants to create an urban kibbutz for homeless people

Link: Dreams Don't Die

Link: Your Consent is Not Required

Link: Part 78: A New Corruption Investigation in Los Angeles – The Case of Patrick Wizmann Versus Izek Shomof

Link: Part 81: Izek Shomof and the LA Alliance for Human Rights – Developer Chutzpah and the Salvation of Los Angeles

Link: LA Council President Criticizes Anti-Camping Analysis, As Agency Stands By Its Findings

Link: BREAKING: Independent Audit Ordered for City's Homeless Initiatives