• printer friendly
• mail this article
• iPod format
• digg

Photo

Kyle Contarino, a homeless man living in Westwood, is one of approximately 80,000 homeless people

Most days Kyle Contarino, homeless and living in Westwood, picks up the Daily Bruin Sports section and imagines what could have been.

“I dropped out of high school. I think about it every day. I was stupid because I was good at basketball,” said the 32-year-old, bundled up outside the Jews for Jesus center on Le Conte Avenue on Sunday night. “I’m just a quitter. That’s why I’m homeless.”

Since moving to Westwood several months ago, Contarino says he mostly keeps to himself.

Still, up until last week, police could have arrested the man because he was in violation of a city municipal ordinance against sitting, lying or sleeping on public sidewalks.

The Los Angeles law – considered by many as one of the nation’s most restrictive ordinances against the homeless – was revoked last Friday, when the San Francisco appeals court ruled that the restriction amounts to cruel and unusual punishment, since there are more homeless people in Los Angeles than there are shelter beds.

Contarino, like many others who live on the streets in Westwood, welcomed the long-awaited ruling.

“Homeless people aren’t doing anything wrong. They’re not the reason the world is screwed up,” he said.

Even if there were enough shelter beds for the city’s roughly 80,000 homeless people, many of Westwood’s homeless say they would still rather live on the streets.

Skip, a 65-year-old wheelchair-bound homeless man, stays away from shelters because he fears employees would force him to go to a hospital.

Skip’s toes are gnarled and a few of his toenails have been rubbed raw from being dragged shoeless along the sidewalk.

He said he’s scared to get help because he thinks the beds at medical wards are stuffed with human hearts.

Psychotic fears like Skip’s are common among homeless people, roughly a third of whom suffer from mental illness, according to a 2003 Los Angeles Department of Mental Health Study.

This keeps some of the city’s homeless population from seeking help even when help is available, said Tod Lipka, director of Step Up on Second, a nonprofit organization that helps mentally ill homeless people reintegrate into society.

“There’s a certain level of freedom that comes with living on the street even though it’s a difficult lifestyle,” Lipka said, adding that some mentally ill homeless people seek help despite their psychosis.

Others stay on the streets because they can’t find any motivation not to.

“My heart’s not in anything anymore. A lot of homeless people give up on life,” Contarino said.

Though Contarino has made an effort recently to receive unemployment and disability payments, he said it is difficult for him to do much else to get his life back on track.

Without the conveniences that come with a place to stay – a toilet, a shower, a washer and dryer – he said cleaning up and looking good for a job is too overwhelming.

“People take things for granted. If I ever have a washer and dryer, I’m going to love that thing,” Contarino said.

While the appeals court ruling could affect Westwood’s homeless population, its impact is expected to be felt most on Skid Row, a 50-block downtown district home to roughly 11,000 homeless people nightly.

Law enforcement officials, who were readying plans to aggressively clean up the cardboard encampments before the ruling, will now be forced to opt for a less stringent approach.

Experts expect a new plan that would allow the cardboard encampments to remain, while cracking down on the violence, drug sales and prostitution within them.

Before moving to Westwood, Contarino spent two weeks on Skid Row.

“It’s too dangerous, it’s too depressing,” he said.

Tim Wafchild has called the streets of Westwood home for nearly 20 years, but he said he has stayed on Skid Row too.

Wafchild is missing most of his teeth and the bags under his eyes sag loosely against his sunken cheekbones – he said he used to be addicted to methamphetamine.

“I’m an old Hollywood tweaker, but I don’t shoot up no more,” he said, sitting outside of Jose Bernstein Sunday night.

Anywhere from one-third to two-thirds of Los Angeles’ homeless are substance abusers, according to a 2004 study by the Institute for the Study of Homelessness and Poverty at the Weingart Center.

Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, who has said he wants to clean up drug use and crime on Skid Row without forcing transients from their cardboard encampments, welcomed last week’s ruling.

The city’s crackdown will target “the predators who are preying on the homeless, whether they are selling drugs, prostitution, whatever it is,” Villaraigosa told the Los Angeles Times.