Vehicle Dwellers Ready for Stalled 'Roadmap to Homes'

Fourteen homeless people who currently live in their vehicles within the boundaries of the Neighborhood Council of Westchester/Playa have applied to participate in the "Roadmap to Housing" program that has stalled.

The progam would grant homeless people living in their vehicles access to neighborhood parking lots as they transition to permanent housing. It has been spearheaded by Los Angeles City Councilman Bill Rosendahl, whose district includes Mar Vista, Venice, Westchester, Playa del Rey and surrounding areas, but it lately has seen little movement forward.

Rosendahl announced the program a year ago as part of a multi-pronged approach to cope with the roughly 250 vehicles in the district with people living in them. The program was modeled after similar efforts in Santa Barbara and Eugene, OR.

It is currently illegal to live in a vehicle anywhere in the city, so the program requires the Los Angeles City Council to pass an ordinance that would allow vehicular homeless people to park overnight in designated spaces on public property. Due to the problems of finding property that residents can agree on, the ordinance has not been able to get out of the City Council's Transportation Committee, which Rosendahl chairs.

"I want to move forward with an ordinance. I want to be able to give these people a good night's sleep, but I did not want to be bogged down indefinitely with the process," Rosendahl said.

The Neighborhood Council of Westchester/Playa in April approved a motion supporting the "Roadmap to Housing" program and the use of the Westchester Municipal Building parking lot as long as a parking lot in Venice was part of the program at its inception. They also required that homeless people in Westchester/Playa who were identified in a 2010 survey of homeless be given priority access to the Westchester lot.

The West L.A. Neighborhood Council also endorsed the program with the caveat that a suitable lot also be found in Venice.

The Venice Neighborhood Council voted 12-2 in April to support the program with dedicated spaces at Penmar Golf Course.

In June, a motion opposing the use of the Penmar Golf Course lot was voted down by the Mar Vista Community Council. The city's Parks Commission did not support including Penmar in the "Roadmap to Housing" plan, and some residents vehemently opposed using the golf course parking lot.

"I apologized publicly at a meeting in Mar Vista," Rosendahl said. "They should have been brought into the process much earlier."

Rosendahl recently told Patch that after the June 22 , the Penmark Golf Course lots had been taken "off the table." Rosendahl went to the scene of the shooting shortly after it occurred and he said it was obvious that the neighborhood already had enough issues and the shooting was the last straw.

Despite the lack of transitional parking, the nonprofit group People Assisting the Homeless (PATH), which is contracted to administer the program, has helped at least 10 homeless people living in their vehicles find housing already.

Booker Pearson, head of the neighborhood council's homelessness and vehicular living committee, gave board members an update Tuesday evening and said the 14 potential program members have submitted applications and are awaiting approval.

"I strongly feel that the program must go forward," Rosendahl said. "I am challenging the Venice Neighborhood Council to help me find spots west of Lincoln."

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