A New Voice in the Homeless Debate

Bobby Shriver joined the family business last November, handily garnering a seat on the Santa Monica City Council despite being new to local politics.

Lately, he has found it to be rather a hot seat.

This becomes painfully clear, he said, when he pops into coffee shops and constituents admonish him with: “You haven’t done a damn thing on the homelessness issue, have you?”

It’s not for lack of time spent on the problem. Since his election, Shriver, who entered the council race after a dispute with City Hall over the height of his greenery on posh Adelaide Drive, has spent a great deal of time on the difficult -- and politically charged -- issue of homelessness.

He and a small band of volunteers have been researching ideas, meeting with service providers and learning about model programs in California. Shriver, 51, has traveled to San Francisco and throughout Southern California to see homeless initiatives in action.

Santa Monica has been wrestling for years with what to do about its homeless population. For a time, it welcomed groups that provided a variety of services for transients. But in recent years, many residents and business owners say their compassion has worn thin, as panhandling and public urination have continued unabated.

Many homeless activists applaud the new energy Shriver brings to the issue. City employees, however, say he is merely the latest to tackle an issue that has long bedeviled the community.

They privately express some resentment that a Kennedy with connections has come along suggesting that they haven’t accomplished much, when they feel they have made progress.

Shriver -- the nephew of President Kennedy, the son of Sargent and Eunice Kennedy Shriver and the brother of California First Lady Maria Shriver -- says he understands why residents are frustrated.

Despite hefty investments of time and money to curb homelessness, the seaside community remains a haven for hundreds of individuals who daily set up cardboard shelters or sleeping bags in parks and on sidewalks.

Shriver’s mission statement is this: The city must consider new ideas and embrace a regional approach to solving this seemingly intractable problem.

“Let’s try something new,” Shriver said. “If it doesn’t work, it doesn’t work. The one thing we all know is the citizens in the street don’t think we’re doing a good job.”

In late April, Shriver took his first significant council action on the subject.

He persuaded a majority of council colleagues to support his proposal to recruit a prominent person who would serve as what Shriver calls a “homeless initiative secretary.”

That person, Shriver says, should be of the caliber of a Leon Panetta, President Clinton’s chief of staff, or a Michael Eisner, the Disney chief executive, who is retiring. It should be someone who could work with mayors and other top officials throughout the region to create “sobering centers,” mental health and drug courts and year-round housing at Veterans Affairs facilities.

It is no surprise that Shriver would aim so high. He is accustomed to enlisting big-name celebrities to support pet causes. U2 singer Bono, for example, helped him found an organization called DATA to aid African nations.

Shriver said he proposed the new position after learning that Santa Monica had just one employee devoted full time to homelessness.

“The only way anybody gets anything done is ... one person works like a savage maniac seven days a week to get it done,” Shriver said. “That person has to be someone who commands the respect of many people.”

Shriver’s action and comments have caused some consternation.

Councilman Richard Bloom, who voted against Shriver’s proposal, said the notion of a regional approach is hardly new. He thinks it’s a mistake for Santa Monica alone to appoint a honcho to seek a regional solution.

Bloom is a member of the executive committee of Bring LA Home, a task force that plans in early June to roll out a plan to end the region’s homelessness within a decade.

“We’re a region of enormous complexity, with 88 cities,” said Bloom, adding that he is still open to working with Shriver on the issue. “We need to marshal resources in the most effective way possible. We’re not going to do that if we decentralize the authority.”

Julie Rusk, Santa Monica’s human services manager, said that despite public frustration, the city has been making progress on the homelessness problem.

“Hundreds of people have been helped,” she said.

But Rusk acknowledges that a solution has proved elusive, given the region’s “challenging political structure,” the lack of funding, a dearth of housing and rampant NIMBY-ism.

Many communities in the region have typically resisted adding homeless facilities and services. Because of a zoning issue, Los Angeles recently squelched a plan to locate an urgent care center serving the mentally ill near Brotman Medical Center on Venice Boulevard, on the border between Los Angeles and Culver City.

Santa Monica officials have long suspected that police in Beverly Hills and other communities give homeless people bus fare and point them toward their city.

Ordinances passed in Santa Monica over the years to limit the presence of homeless people have had little effect. A hotly debated 2002 ordinance sought to curb free outdoor meals by requiring groups serving 150 or more people to get permits. The charity organizations simply split the crowds they were feeding into smaller groups.

Shriver might find that his favorite ideas are similarly thwarted. He has for months been suggesting that an empty building on the VA grounds in Westwood be used as a facility for chronically homeless veterans.

Charles M. Dorman, director of the VA Medical Center, said he met briefly with Shriver and “got the distinct impression he is interested in creating programs that are very different from what we operate.... Our concern is that what he is looking for is more of a shelter environment on our grounds. We’re in the healthcare business.”

He and Shriver plan to meet again May 23.

Shriver’s supporters say it’s worth trying his approach of hiring a high-profile person who can relate to the mayors and council members of Los Angeles, Beverly Hills and other cities in the region. And they appreciate that he has sparked a new level of discussion.

“Bobby has brought the issue to another level by keeping it on the agenda all the time and bringing resources in,” said Toni Reinis, executive director of New Directions, a program that aids homeless veterans on the VA campus in Westwood. “He certainly is in a position now, with his connections to the state, to make things happen.”

There was a reminder of those connections when Shriver married his longtime girlfriend, Malissa Feruzzi, May 7 at St. Martin of Tours Church in Brentwood. Handing out programs and ushering guests to their seats was a grinning Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, his brother-in-law.