Malibu, the exclusive coastal enclave famous for the wealth of its 12,600 residents, doesn’t want its roughly 140 homeless people to remain within its borders. The City Council just unanimously voted to solve the problem “by transporting individuals experiencing homelessness to a shelter that offers services, but does not intend on hosting that shelter inside of Malibu.”
According to this so-called “Alternative Sleeping Location” (ASL) approach, Malibu would roust homeless people under L.A. County’s “no camping” ordinance,” while still complying with the Ninth Circuit Court decision known as Martin v. Boise, which effectively says governments cannot evict homeless people without providing them with an alternative place to live. Malibu’s ASL decision would establish a shelter somewhere outside the city’s borders, most likely in the San Fernando Valley, although so far, no specific location has been identified.
The problems associated with the Malibu approach are legion. For starters, Malibu would have to reach an agreement with whatever city the homeless people are transferred to—and it’s hard to see why any other city would accept them. As one member of Malibu’s Homeless Task Force said, no matter what city is chosen, “They won’t be happy to see that, even if it’s sober living…we’ll catch so much flack on that.”
Another challenge is the cost of providing such alternative shelter. Malibu doesn’t want to pay for it; as one Council member, Bruce Silverstein, said, “It’s a federal, state or county responsibility to solve the problem of homelessness or to tackle the problem of homelessness, we cannot do it.” He added, “I’m opposed to Malibu spending one dime to address efforts to ‘solve’ homelessness issues or to assist anyone living unhoused in Malibu who was not a formerly housed resident of Malibu.”
It’s not clear how many, if any, of the 140 homeless people in Malibu were “formerly housed residents of Malibu.” Some of the City Council members said that funding might be available through private grants.
A final objection is an ethical one. As another Homeless Task Force member said, “Something tells me that most people in this community would not think that was a good thing, not morally, ethically right… I think it would open the door to a lot of challenges, to litigation.”
The ASL is far from a done deal; if it is eventually approved and implemented, it would be a first-in-the-nation approach. To my knowledge, no municipality has ever attempted to evict its entire homeless population. This interesting new wrinkle in dealing with homelessness is something we’ll be watching.
Steve Heimoff