Along the concrete floor of the San Gabriel River in southeast Los Angeles, Sean Diaz recalled one of the worst nights of his years of homelessness.
He finds an abandoned building to sleep in, but does not realize that another person already occupies the place. Diaz said he woke up to the sound of a baseball bat hitting him in the head, resulting in a wound that required 10 stitches. Diaz said if the shelter had been empty that night, he might not have been injured.
That’s why Diaz was surprised to learn that the city of Norwalk, where she grew up, had banned new homeless shelters and supportive housing developments.
“I think they would like to open more,” Diaz, 36, said on a recent afternoon as we passed an encampment on a riverbed under Highway 105. “That way we can keep it off the street.”
In August, the Norwalk City Council approved one of California’s most sweeping anti-homelessness laws in living memory. The law not only prohibits the construction of shelters and homeless housing, but also blocks the creation of new laundromats, liquor stores, payday rentals, and other businesses that primarily serve the poor.
Shortly after, Gov. Gavin Newsom accused Norwalk of violating state housing laws, the latest in a string of areas targeted by the governor in recent years. But Norwalk stands out from other areas like Beverly Hills, Coronado, Huntington Beach and La Cañada Flintridge, where Newsom says he is failing to do his part to address California’s housing problems.
Norwalk is not a wealthy white enclave, but a predominantly Latino working and middle class community. Elected leaders in the city of 100,000 say Norwalk is being treated as a garbage dump and officials are making major budget cuts to deal with an influx of homeless residents and broken promises to other agencies. He said he felt forced to do so.
“Why is Norwalk always the pinpoint for these programs?” asked City Councilman Rick Ramirez. “Where did the help from other surrounding cities go?” We decided to stand up for ourselves. ”
Norwalk City Councilman Rick Ramirez, who supports the shelter ban, stands in front of a site where future supportive housing will be built.
(Jason Almond/Los Angeles Times)
Norwalk’s law is already having an impact, suspending the creation of new homeless shelters and eligible operations until at least August 2025. County officials canceled a hotel rental project intended to evacuate 80 people living along Highway 105 and elsewhere in the city. The Newsom administration rescinded state approval for the city’s housing development plan, making Norwalk ineligible to receive a portion of affordable housing funding.
The governor warned that a lawsuit against Norwalk was coming.
“It is cruel for the city of Norwalk to ban the construction of shelters when people are still living on the city’s streets,” Newsom said in a statement. “This crisis is urgent and we cannot stand by and watch our communities turn their backs on those in need.”
Norwalk is one of those known as gateway cities, an inner-ring suburb on the border between southeast Los Angeles and Orange County that rapidly moved away from the white working class as the region’s overall demographics changed in the 1980s. The majority is now Latino. Some communities, such as Bell Gardens and Maywood, became some of the poorest and most overcrowded areas in the nation.
But other areas, including Norwalk, maintained high homeownership rates and relative wealth even as demographics changed. Currently, nearly three-quarters of Norwalk’s homes are owner-occupied, and the median household income is higher than the county average, although much lower than Beverly Hills.
While Norwalk appears to be different from other communities that have opposed housing to the state, it shares a similar outlook, argued Manuel Pastor, a sociology professor at the University of Southern California.
“More assimilated spaces often resemble the rest of American suburbia, where conflict is limited to issues of defending one’s turf from encroachment – a Latino version of the NIMBY agenda. ” the pastor wrote in a 2013 article about Gateway City.
Norwalk leaders say they have done far more than neighboring communities to address homelessness.
Unusually for a city of its size, Norwalk has its own social services department. Miguel Ochoa, a city caseworker, estimates that about 70 percent of his time is spent helping homeless people. He helped clients replace lost identification, provided transportation to doctor’s appointments, and filled out applications for benefits to get back on their feet.
“We are a starting point for people,” Ochoa said.
Norwalk social services worker Miguel Ochoa stands at a food pantry in the city in October.
(Jason Almond/Los Angeles Times)
A 60-unit development for homeless and low-income veterans and their families is expected to open on city-owned land early next year. The project has been in the works for more than four years but has been discontinued, so the ban does not apply.
The city’s complaints center on homelessness-related projects that are poorly managed by the city.
Since the COVID-19 pandemic, a mix of county, state and federal funding has gone toward leasing and purchasing motels for use as shelters and supportive housing.
Norwalk’s first hotel was a renovation of the 210-room hotel that took place within weeks of Newsom’s spring 2020 pandemic stay-at-home order and caused a number of problems, city leaders said. A number of calls were made to the police, as well as complaints from residents about begging. More than 300 people were unaccounted for by service providers when the site closed 16 months later, which city officials believe is responsible for nearly doubling Norwalk’s homeless population. It is said that there is
Hotel Saddleback in Norwalk. City officials complained about the homeless shelter set up on site during the COVID-19 pandemic.
(Jason Almond/Los Angeles Times)
The county planned to resume shelter operations at the site until the decision was overridden by Norwalk law.
A second site, the Motel 6, also served as a 56-room evacuation site, but it also had problems, neighboring business owners said. Jason Perez, who runs the Mr. Rosewood Family Restaurant diner next door to the motel, said the situation was “a disaster scene from 6 a.m. to 10 p.m. every day.”
“We’ve seen a lot of outings and loitering that people don’t need to see when they go out to eat with their families,” Perez said at the last City Council meeting. month.
The county has been closing shelter operations and converting the sites into permanent housing since the pandemic, another project that would be eliminated under the law.
Some of Norwalk’s concerns were vindicated in court. Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge James Chalfant ruled in January 2021 that the county could operate Norwalk’s hotel conversion program, but did not consider the county’s consideration of the city’s problems with the 210-room property. Blame the lack. Chalfant called the project a “public nuisance” and criticized the county for not equitably spreading the program, known as Project Roomkey, across the region.
“The county has concentrated most of its Project Roomkey facilities in working-class and minority communities like Norwalk,” Chalfant wrote.
Los Angeles County officials referred questions regarding operations on the hotel grounds to the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority. The Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority is a joint city and county agency that employs outreach personnel and oversees nonprofit operators. A spokesperson for the agency did not respond to a request for comment.
Norwalk leaders are exaggerating the problems caused by the city’s lack of support from other governments and its homeless population.
In September, city officials said in a statement that Norwalk receives no funding from county programs that pay for homeless services. County officials responded that the city received $90,000 for homelessness development and $180,000 annually for housing navigation services, in addition to funds distributed to the city through community initiatives. A Norwalk spokesperson later confirmed that the city had received grant money from the county.
Two years ago, Ramirez, a Norwalk City Council member, told the Whittier Daily News that homeless people were “attacking people in their homes, at work, and while they’re out and about walking.”
Asked by the Times to verify that claim, Ramirez checked off a list of incidents he said took place at stores, but did not name incidents that occurred at residences.
“Did I say home? What I meant was business,” Ramirez said.
Violent crime is down in Norwalk compared to before the shelter program began, even though violent crime has increased countywide over the same period, according to California Department of Justice statistics. Property crimes increased in Norwalk during this time, reaching nearly the same rate as in 2018.
Some residents believe the city’s actions and rhetoric incite fear and damage Norwalk’s reputation. Jesse Flores heads a support group called Norwalk Unides that prepares and distributes meals to homeless residents. Flores said the city can do more to help people on the streets, adding that he believes it is offensive for the city to equate supportive housing with payday loans.
“Growing up, leaving Norwalk was seen as a success,” said Flores, 29. “We’re trying to change that narrative. It doesn’t help that the governor and we come up with these things when we’re losing funding and fighting against homelessness.”
Jesse Flores, an organizer with Norwalk Unides, an organization that helps homeless residents.
(Jason Almond/Los Angeles Times)
The controversy over Norwalk’s anti-shelter ordinance is not the only homeless issue under negotiation with state leaders.
Last month, Newsom signed legislation allowing the use of seven abandoned buildings on the grounds of Metropolitan State Hospital, a public psychiatric facility in Norwalk. The plan is to house homeless residents with severe mental health needs there.
Norwalk Mayor Margarita Rios said she supports a homeless facility at the site, which is fenced and staffed by full-time hospital police. She said this is an example of Norwalk’s willingness to do more.
“We’re the best partners if the county or the state brings us along rather than telling us what’s going to happen,” Rios said. “We want to make sure Norwalk is given the respect and attention it deserves.”
In addition to blocking the proposed hotel-to-shelter conversion, Rios said the city’s law was successful for other reasons. It’s that the city’s complaints no longer fall on deaf ears.
The Newsom administration rejected the idea that the anti-displacement law was helping the city. Instead, Newsom spokeswoman Tara Gallegos said in a statement that the law “sends a chilling message” that the city will not tolerate housing the homeless.
“The state is willing to meet with Mr. Norwalk to discuss how to comply with state law, but we have not scheduled a meeting to discuss how best to violate state law,” Gallegos said.
A homeless man is seen in a riverbed near the 105/605 freeway interchange in Norwalk in October.
(Jason Almond/Los Angeles Times)
Diaz, who returned to the San Gabriel Riverbed, said living on the streets became more difficult as he got older.
“People look down on us,” Diaz said. “They’re allowed that opinion. But put yourself in this situation, regardless of what I did to put myself here. It’s not fun.”
Diaz looked up at the cloudy sky and said it might rain after this. There were only a few hours left until nightfall, and he didn’t know where to sleep.
Times staff writers Ben Poston and Doug Smith contributed to this article.
