Report: Los Angeles County is Obstructing Aid to Mentally Ill Homeless People
Lawyers from the Disability Rights Legal Center say bureaucratic barriers are illegally and systematically knocking mentally ill homeless people off the welfare rolls in L.A. County, reports the Los Angeles Times.
At issue are infrastructure and administrative hurdles at county welfare offices that disproportionately disadvantage and discourage those seeking aid who suffer from developmental disabilities or mental illnesses. The Disability Rights Legal Center described the conditions in a report submitted to the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors earlier today:
While 30% to 40% of the county’s 44,000 homeless people are seriously mentally ill or developmentally disabled, only 8% receive special assistance from the county to navigate a daunting “labyrinth” of requirements, the report says.
“For example, one person applying for [general relief] was wearing a laminated paper crown, tight golf shorts, a T-shirt that was so small his belly button was exposed, and a different shoe on each foot,” the report said. “Yet no county worker even asked whether he needed help during the visit.”
The Legal Center report highlights familiar features of a grinding bureaucracy and how they disproportionately affect the mentally ill: long waits, noisy and crowded conditions, intimidating security procedures, and stacks of confusing paperwork scare off or otherwise push out those with certain conditions. Strict deadlines and work requirements cause some to be summarily dropped from welfare rolls altogether. These rules and procedures are tailored to the operation of the bureaucracy, without much consideration given to the daily realities of the very people that bureaucracy is intended to serve.
“Though they may seem like mundane annoyances to us, the barriers deter many with mental disabilities from even trying to obtain benefits,” the report said. “Many who do try fail.”
The Los Angeles Times report indicates the presentation of this report to the Board of Supervisors is a last-ditch effort to avoid litigation on behalf of the county’s homeless population. The report argues that these county’s bureaucratic barriers violate state and federal law.
The case brings to mind a case in D.C. Superior Court in early 2014, in which homeless families who’d been forced to sleep in a makeshift shelter during frigid conditions were granted class action status in a suit alleging D.C.’s emergency housing is inadequate. In January of this year a Superior Court judge ruled in favor of the homeless and issued an injunction forcing the city to address its infrastructure to the real needs of its homeless population.
It’s obscene that such a ruling should have to be made in a court, but unless Los Angeles County gets serious about the state of its homeless population, that’s where this is headed.
