Plight of Children Cited : Suit Seeks Emergency Shelters for Families

A class-action lawsuit was filed Thursday in Los Angeles Superior Court to force the state Department of Social Services to provide emergency shelter to homeless families who live in abandoned cars and other undesirable places.

The suit, filed by lawyers for several public-interest agencies, contends that county officials in California, acting as agents for the state agency, provide emergency shelter only to children believed to be abused, neglected or endangered.

In January, authorities spent about $231,000 statewide in more than 600 emergency cases involving abused children. The suit, set to be heard May 12, says homeless children also are endangered and they and their parents should qualify for state assistance.

The plight that befell Barbara Davila last year is typical of what happens to homeless families in California, attorneys said.

Davila, 49, who cares for two of her own small children and two grandchildren, erroneously had her welfare checks cut off for about six months last year and, as a result, lost her Lincoln Heights home, her lawyers said.

“I lost my furniture, I lost my house,” she sobbed at a Los Angeles news conference announcing the suit. “We lived in a car in alleys, sleeping in streets . . . wherever we could. We went to get emergency aid, but they said they couldn’t help me.”

Her lawyers said the state should not have turned down Davila, who eventually got another home in the Cypress Park section of Northeast Los Angeles. As a rule, homeless families are refused state help unless they are willing to put their children in foster homes or emergency shelters.

“The whole purpose of child welfare services is to keep families together and they (state officials) are doing just the opposite,” said Melinda Bird, an attorney with the Western Center on Law and Poverty in Los Angeles.

Some homeless parents, desperate to obtain adequate care for their children, have agreed to temporarily place their children in emergency shelter in places such as Los Angeles County’s MacLaren Hall in El Monte, where it may cost authorities as much as $140 a night to house a child.

“The state could put the whole family up in the Bonaventure for that,” Bird said. “They could stay in a Motel 6 for $30 to $40 a night.”

Bird and other attorneys who participated in filing the suit said that there are several options available to shelter homeless families, including the use of vouchers at local motels.

There are an estimated 500,000 homeless people in California, but the attorneys said Thursday that it is difficult to accurately pinpoint the number of homeless families in the state.

Nancy Berlin, shelter project director of Las Familias del Pueblo community center in Los Angeles, said there may be as many as 10,000 homeless families in Los Angeles County alone. She pointed out that most of them are longtime residents of this area.

A spokeswoman for Linda McMahon, director of the state Department of Social Services, declined to comment on the suit.