Speaker 1: From Curtco Media.
Carol Sobel: We have seen across this country the closing of access
Carol Sobel: to public spaces where you can engage in protest. We
Carol Sobel: see it outside the White House, where they put up
Carol Sobel: fences. If Donald Trump could close off Lafayette Square, I'm
Carol Sobel: sure he would. When I was downtown yesterday at Los
Carol Sobel: Angeles City Hall, the entire lawn was fenced off. That's
Carol Sobel: where you do protest in Los Angeles. I think there's
Carol Sobel: a real problem around the country.
Bill Curtis: Ms. Carol Sobel, a renowned civil rights attorney said, " Right
Bill Curtis: now, people who exercise their constitutional rights to protest have
Bill Curtis: to fear for their lives." Sound familiar? That's not a
Bill Curtis: quote from this week or even last month. It's a
Bill Curtis: statement that Carol made almost two decades ago. The case,
Bill Curtis: the National Lawyers Guild versus the city of Los Angeles.
Bill Curtis: The lawsuit detailed the array of activities that the LAPD
Bill Curtis: used to suppress free speech and intimidate those who attempted
Bill Curtis: to exercise it in public venues. Carol also said the
Bill Curtis: LAPD is at war with the first amendment. So, how
Bill Curtis: much has changed? This is Politics: Meet Me in the
Bill Curtis: Middle. I'm Bill Curtis. Well, let's welcome our panel. Firstly,
Bill Curtis: our cohost Pulitzer prize winning historian, best- selling author, worldwide
Bill Curtis: lecturer Professor Ed Larson. Nice to see you Zoomed in, Ed.
Ed Larson: Nice to see you again and I'm so happy Carol
Ed Larson: could join us.
Bill Curtis: Also, remote, Jane Albrecht. She's an international trade attorney who
Bill Curtis: fought for US interests to high level government officials all
Bill Curtis: over the world. Hey Jane, nice to see you here
Bill Curtis: too.
Jane Albrecht: Always good to see you and welcome, Carol.
Bill Curtis: Now our special guest, Carol Sobel. She's a powerful civil
Bill Curtis: rights attorney and advocate. She has repeatedly taken on the
Bill Curtis: city of Los Angeles for violating the rights of protestors
Bill Curtis: and homeless. After the 1992 Rodney King uprising in LA,
Bill Curtis: Carol was one of the lawyers who worked on revising
Bill Curtis: the LA police department's crowd control and use of force
Bill Curtis: policies. She served as lead or co- counsel on a
Bill Curtis: myriad of pivotal cases. She spent 20 years working at
Bill Curtis: the ACLU and then put up her own shingle back
Bill Curtis: in 1997, which brings us to today with Ms. Sobel
Bill Curtis: as co- counsel in the Black Lives Matter versus city
Bill Curtis: of LA class action suit. It was filed in federal
Bill Curtis: court on behalf of more than 3, 000 persons arrested
Bill Curtis: in the city. Ms. Sobel is a board member for
Bill Curtis: the National Police Accountability Project and a professor focused on civil
Bill Curtis: rights at Loyola Law School. Welcome Carol Sobel. Thank you
Bill Curtis: for breaking away to join us.
Carol Sobel: Thank you for asking me.
Bill Curtis: Let's start with a bit of a comparison. Ed, our
Bill Curtis: country was essentially built on the rights of free speech
Bill Curtis: and protest. Our forefathers were essentially radical protestors themselves.
Ed Larson: We date our founding from the Boston tea party and
Ed Larson: the Boston massacre. Our founders were rebelling against the established
Ed Larson: government for their rights of property, for their status. They
Ed Larson: felt like they were second class citizens in England's growing
Ed Larson: empire. People even then though recognized and raised issues of,
Ed Larson: is there hypocrisy here? Are some people being left out?
Ed Larson: Of course, Abigail Adams famously said, remember the women, there
Ed Larson: were black voices at the time. You calling yourself being
Ed Larson: enslaved by the British? We're really enslaved. So yes, it's
Ed Larson: been a long history and a long development. That's part
Ed Larson: of America's story.
Bill Curtis: Carol in our opener, when we quoted you from 20
Bill Curtis: years ago, you said the LAPD is at war with
Bill Curtis: the first amendment. So, that was back then. What's changed?
Ed Larson: It's a little hard to tell sometimes. Just so your
Ed Larson: listeners know, I had a really personal stake in the
Ed Larson: litigation 20 years ago. I was one of two people
Ed Larson: shot in the face between the eyes. One woman actually
Ed Larson: lost an eye. I was clubbed with the baton. I
Ed Larson: was trampled by horses. So, I had a really personal
Ed Larson: stake in a lot of this. We've made a lot
Ed Larson: of progress, but I think like many agencies, the LAPD
Ed Larson: has a warrior mentality, and that warrior mentality comes into
Ed Larson: play against anybody who stands up against them. I think
Ed Larson: that everybody in this city is very concerned. Every time
Ed Larson: they go out and shoot the protesters, they're using more
Ed Larson: injurious weapons. There's a new report out by Physicians for
Ed Larson: Human Rights, this time around, they use a 40 millimeter
Ed Larson: projectiles, which are very specific in targeting people. We had
Ed Larson: 12 people shot in the head.
Bill Curtis: My goodness. So, it doesn't sound like the changes between
Bill Curtis: then and now have necessarily been positive. It seems like
Bill Curtis: we may be going in the wrong direction.
Carol Sobel: We went from 2007 until now without the use of
Carol Sobel: major less- lethals on people, but they seem to have
Carol Sobel: forgotten what happened in the past. I think that's one of the
Carol Sobel: problems in a lot of police agencies, but particularly in the
Carol Sobel: LAPD. There is no institutional memory and they don't care anyway.
Jane Albrecht: Despite the problems in the LAPD, Carol, I think this is
Jane Albrecht: a national problem. I think it does come from militarization
Jane Albrecht: of the police. That comes with leadership from the federal
Jane Albrecht: government. The federal government spends a lot of money and does a
Jane Albrecht: lot of programs to train the police. It's not just
Jane Albrecht: that they provide military equipment but they train them in
Jane Albrecht: military mentality. These are the enemy. These are not your
Jane Albrecht: civilians that you're keeping the peace. One is protect and
Jane Albrecht: serve. One is to kill the enemy. That's part of
Jane Albrecht: what has to change.
Bill Curtis: As Carol well knows, police forces around the country tend
Bill Curtis: to go in cycles. There was a sense that LAPD,
Bill Curtis: which had a notorious tradition, came to a head at
Bill Curtis: the Rodney King riots. That's where it all came out.
Bill Curtis: Then there was a sense that there'd been a lot
Bill Curtis: of progress. Maybe the issue that she'd flagged that I'd
Bill Curtis: like to re- highlight is that institutional memory issue.
Carol Sobel: Not only is there a lack of institutional memory, when
Carol Sobel: you have a really big agency like the LAPD and
Carol Sobel: you're moving around a lot of personnel, there was no
Carol Sobel: system by which you know what lawsuits have been brought
Carol Sobel: in your jurisdiction, your division, how you have to enforce
Carol Sobel: different things. I'll tell you when I met with a
Carol Sobel: captain and he told me he didn't know about this
Carol Sobel: injunction that we had just gotten six months ago, I
Carol Sobel: remember the city's, the police department's lawyer telling me, " Well,
Carol Sobel: you have to understand Carol, we don't really teach our
Carol Sobel: officers much about the fourth amendment in the Academy." I said, "
Carol Sobel: You really don't want to say that to me." The
Carol Sobel: heart of what officers have to do is fourth amendment.
Carol Sobel: I think it's not only a lack of institutional memory,
Carol Sobel: it's qualified immunity. It's this doctrine that whatever you did
Carol Sobel: we're going to give you a pass. There's been a
Carol Sobel: lot of talk about it lately, particularly in the wake
Carol Sobel: of the killing of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor and
Carol Sobel: other people. It has given police officers a free reign
Carol Sobel: to violate rights and not care about it.
Bill Curtis: Carol, let's do a little comparison between, oh, about six
Bill Curtis: years ago and today, when protest after the Eric Garner
Bill Curtis: and Michael Brown shootings seem to be populated predominantly by
Bill Curtis: black people, but now in 2020, after the George Floyd
Bill Curtis: murder, it's a multi- ethnic outrage and passionate Black Lives
Bill Curtis: Matter protest include people from all walks of our society
Bill Curtis: who finally feel that, well, all of us must evolve.
Bill Curtis: So, is that a major a step forward as it
Bill Curtis: seems? Is that something you're going to be able to use toward
Bill Curtis: bettering our future?
Carol Sobel: Well, it didn't change the response of the Trump administration in
Carol Sobel: Lafayette Park. They had no problem gassing people and shooting
Carol Sobel: them, even though they were largely a lot of white
Carol Sobel: people who had come out. I think it changes it
Carol Sobel: somewhat, but then I think what happens is when you
Carol Sobel: see opportunists and in this case, a lot of right-
Carol Sobel: wing opportunists coming in and engaging in violence, escalating violence,
Carol Sobel: it makes it very difficult for the protesters. It undercut
Carol Sobel: the support for Black Lives Matter I think pretty much.
Bill Curtis: It muddies the message, right? It also gives this administration
Bill Curtis: something to point at.
Carol Sobel: It gives Bill Barr who can say there aren't very many
Carol Sobel: people killed, which I think he said this week.
Jane Albrecht: Claimed only 12 were killed.
Carol Sobel: Seven people were killed by the Los Angeles County Sheriff
Carol Sobel: in two a half months.
Bill Curtis: Hey Jane, I'm curious. What do you think of the recent
Bill Curtis: statement that Barr made where he wants prosecutors to use
Bill Curtis: the sedition laws against the folks that were violent to
Bill Curtis: these protests?
Jane Albrecht: I can't imagine what his thinking is on that, but
Jane Albrecht: I think Bill Barr is doing a lot of things
Jane Albrecht: that would warn impeachment of the attorney general.
Carol Sobel: If I can add something, of even greater concern is
Carol Sobel: using the sedition laws against the elected officials in those
Carol Sobel: cities. That is really concerning.
Jane Albrecht: Yes. It's total politization of the justice department, which is
Jane Albrecht: a corruption of the justice department, which is a critical
Jane Albrecht: element of our democracy is the rule of law and
Jane Albrecht: not of men.
Ed Larson: But they wouldn't be saying these things if they didn't
Ed Larson: think that it brought them political support. We are in
Ed Larson: the middle of an election campaign. They think this is
Ed Larson: resonating with someone and talking about bringing actions against say
Ed Larson: the mayor of Seattle or the mayor of Portland. All
Ed Larson: these things must be speaking to some audience.
Bill Curtis: Carol, do you have any information on how the prosecutors are
Bill Curtis: reacting to this kind of a statement?
Carol Sobel: I think across the board, they are rejecting it, but
Carol Sobel: he's also at war with his prosecutors. He did this
Carol Sobel: press conference earlier this week where he said everything comes
Carol Sobel: to me. I'm the decider. I think it's aimed at
Carol Sobel: this law and order thing, this Nixon thing, but I
Carol Sobel: don't think it plays now. I think the notion of
Carol Sobel: he's going to get the " suburban housewives" with all of
Carol Sobel: this I don't think really plays, because I do think
Carol Sobel: that people are, they're concerned as they have a right
Carol Sobel: to be, but they also are very concerned about what
Carol Sobel: many more people see as the undeniable murdering black and
Carol Sobel: brown people in this country by police with videotape after videotape.
Ed Larson: They think this is going to play, and we're going to find
Ed Larson: out in the election, if it does.
Jane Albrecht: I think they know exactly what they're doing. For a
Jane Albrecht: conservative personality profile, their fear of chaos is one of
Jane Albrecht: their strongest issues. So, law and order is very important.
Jane Albrecht: If you looked at the Republican National Convention, it was
Jane Albrecht: four days, there was a little meat thrown to their
Jane Albrecht: base, but it was four days of making white suburbans
Jane Albrecht: worry about flipping the lever for Democrats up and down
Jane Albrecht: the ticket because of law and order issue.
Carol Sobel: I think there's another issue at work in this society
Carol Sobel: and some of the issues that were such key tension points
Carol Sobel: before. If you think back to all of those anti-
Carol Sobel: gay measures that George W. put on the ballots so
Carol Sobel: that he could get elected. Now, we're at a point
Carol Sobel: where the Supreme Court has said, " Yeah, gay marriage, fine."
Carol Sobel: I look at a lot of this too around the
Carol Sobel: policing. We are no longer as polarized racially a society
Carol Sobel: as we once were. People have biracial children, bi- ethnic
Carol Sobel: children and so white mothers worry about their black child,
Carol Sobel: white fathers worry about their black child, and we're coming
Carol Sobel: to a majority minority country very quickly, but I think
Carol Sobel: your attitudes change. Your Mitt Romney or your George Bush,
Carol Sobel: and you have biracial children and grandchildren. I think it
Carol Sobel: really changes how people look at a lot of the
Carol Sobel: policing issues as well, in terms of understanding what's out
Carol Sobel: there. I see white mother after white mother talking on
Carol Sobel: television about her black son. I think that that changes
Carol Sobel: people's experience.
Jane Albrecht: I think you're right.
Ed Larson: You're raising an important issue. I think the parallel with
Ed Larson: the acceptance of gay rights is similar because more and
Ed Larson: more people ended up like Senator Portman of Ohio having
Ed Larson: a gay child and that that made them think differently. The
Ed Larson: question is for this election, is that growing enough? It
Ed Larson: appears to me in some ways that the Trump administration
Ed Larson: is doubling down, that they can win one more election
Ed Larson: under the old fashioned rules.
Carol Sobel: I think COVID-19 is going to tick up. As that
Carol Sobel: number gets to 230, 000 by election day, most of the
Carol Sobel: polling that I've seen reported says that's like the number one
Carol Sobel: issue for people outside of Trump's base, but we'll see.
Ed Larson: I think what changed the trajectory of this particular election
Ed Larson: was COVID and the economic consequences of COVID. That has
Ed Larson: changed the trajectory of the election. We'll just see, because
Ed Larson: we don't know how the votes are going to be
Ed Larson: counted or when the voting is going to stop or
Ed Larson: how states are going to handle the votes they get.
Ed Larson: There's possibly a role for lawyers there as well.
Carol Sobel: There are actually huge teams that have already been hired
Carol Sobel: for that.
Bill Curtis: We're going to hold on that side for just a
Bill Curtis: minute. When we come back, we'll talk about the slogan,
Bill Curtis: defund the police.
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Bill Curtis: Okay, we're back with Carol Sobel, and Carol you've heard
Bill Curtis: the cry national pride to defund the police. What is
Bill Curtis: really meant by that?
Carol Sobel: I think what most people mean by that is taking
Carol Sobel: the resources and using them in a collaborative way that
Carol Sobel: provides safety but also provides responses to issues that are
Carol Sobel: really pressing on communities of color. So for example, providing
Carol Sobel: places where young kids can be, that's how most people
Carol Sobel: describe it. Programs that will help get people into job
Carol Sobel: training, so that you don't have as many opportunities for
Carol Sobel: the police to engage in an oppressive approach. So, it's
Carol Sobel: shifting those programs. I will tell you in LA, when
Carol Sobel: our mayor announced that he was going to take $ 120
Carol Sobel: million from the police budget and repurpose it to the
Carol Sobel: black communities in LA in particular, the activist in the
Carol Sobel: black community said, " Where are those communities? You've destroyed them
Carol Sobel: through your gentrification. You've destroyed them through your incarceration levels,
Carol Sobel: running the metro through the traditional historic African- American communities."
Carol Sobel: As has been done in most cities, in New Orleans
Carol Sobel: and other cities running the freeway through the low- income
Carol Sobel: communities and destroying a community. So, I think that's a
Carol Sobel: lot of what is meant by defund is shift the
Carol Sobel: priorities. My colleague and friend, Connie Rice, had worked a
Carol Sobel: lot with Chief Beck to shift how policing took place
Carol Sobel: in South LA, how they work with gangs and former
Carol Sobel: gang members. She got this program together where the former
Carol Sobel: gang members would basically be outreach workers. It was very,
Carol Sobel: very successful. It's the Urban Peace Institute, and it's been
Carol Sobel: very successful. That money, all got cut.
Bill Curtis: Rachel Brooks and Daniel Prude would probably still be alive
Bill Curtis: today if we didn't send armed police, if we sent
Bill Curtis: trained psychiatrists or psychologists to deal with those situations, how
Bill Curtis: do you envision taking this chant of let's defund the
Bill Curtis: police and turning it into getting experts to actually show
Bill Curtis: up when expertise is necessary?
Carol Sobel: Well, I think that's something that the department has to do, and
Carol Sobel: it sort of overlaps on a lot of the homelessness
Carol Sobel: issues as well. The LAPD agreed a number of years
Carol Sobel: ago under Charlie Beck to create these smart teams. So,
Carol Sobel: they had officers who were specially trained in each division
Carol Sobel: who were supposed to go in, in these situations, along
Carol Sobel: with mental health professionals. I don't think anybody has seen
Carol Sobel: that smart team. I think the program got wiped out.
Bill Curtis: Instead, they just go in with guns.
Carol Sobel: There was a crime call against Melina Abdullah, who is
Carol Sobel: the head of Black Lives Matter here in Los Angeles,
Carol Sobel: where some right wing guy from Southern United States called
Carol Sobel: 911 and made a call that there was a hostage
Carol Sobel: situation at her house. The police came in with SWAT
Carol Sobel: and ordered everyone out. It was really traumatic. That isn't
Carol Sobel: the way you handle that situation. That's not how you
Carol Sobel: would ordinarily handle a hostage situation. You bring in a
Carol Sobel: hostage negotiator. They went in as if they were going
Carol Sobel: to kill everybody in that house if they didn't come
Carol Sobel: in. That's what people were afraid of, that they would have
Carol Sobel: thrown a grenade into the house or something. She has
Carol Sobel: young children. Everything we do, whether it's the community policing or
Carol Sobel: the smart teams, we do a big fanfare about introducing
Carol Sobel: them and then slowly they evaporate.
Bill Curtis: I don't think the police would mind not having to
Bill Curtis: respond to issues that they're frankly not trained to deal with.
Carol Sobel: The interesting thing is the big raises they were going
Carol Sobel: to get this year were all negotiated on the basis
Carol Sobel: of they were providing all of this extra services that
Carol Sobel: were outside of what they usually do. They respond on
Carol Sobel: homelessness, they respond on mental illness. So, their officers should
Carol Sobel: get paid more and the city didn't question it. The
Carol Sobel: mayor, at least, didn't question it in his budget. Instead
Carol Sobel: of saying, " Well, why do we have the police dealing
Carol Sobel: with people who are mentally ill? Why aren't we sending
Carol Sobel: out social workers? Why aren't we sending out outreach workers
Carol Sobel: for homeless people? Why aren't we doing all of these
Carol Sobel: things?" He just said, " Oh yeah, good idea. I'm going
Carol Sobel: to give you 150 million." So, even with the defund
Carol Sobel: amount that he's allowed, there's 30 million more in the
Carol Sobel: police budget. The police budget is approximately 60% of our
Carol Sobel: entire discretionary fund in LA.
Jane Albrecht: In all fairness to the police on this issue, as
Jane Albrecht: we all know, the policy issues that we haven't dealt
Jane Albrecht: with as a society like mental health end up in the
Jane Albrecht: laps of the police. Police often can't intervene without some
Jane Albrecht: violation of a criminal law. I also agree with you
Jane Albrecht: that when they go out for an incident, sometimes you
Jane Albrecht: do need a policeman there, but you should have a multidisciplinary
Jane Albrecht: team. You have someone who's seriously mentally ill waving a
Jane Albrecht: pistol wildly at his family. You've got a very dangerous
Jane Albrecht: situation. That doesn't mean the police have to shoot. I've
Jane Albrecht: complained for years that too often our police are trained
Jane Albrecht: to shoot to kill rather than using some other technique
Jane Albrecht: to control a situation, but I don't think in that
Jane Albrecht: situation, you can just send out a social worker. You've
Jane Albrecht: got to have a multidisciplinary team.
Carol Sobel: I could pull the cases in LA. Most of them
Carol Sobel: are some black man who has no weapon at all,
Carol Sobel: somebody who's mentally ill and totally naked, so you can
Carol Sobel: see that they have no weapon. I guess my point
Carol Sobel: is it doesn't seem to make any difference. Shoot to
Carol Sobel: kill is the norm. It is the first choice.
Jane Albrecht: They shouldn't be trained to shoot to kill. This relates
Jane Albrecht: to militarization of our police.
Bill Curtis: Which just means we're sending the wrong people with the
Bill Curtis: wrong training and the wrong tools. So, a lot of
Bill Curtis: the defund the police, which is terribly misnamed, really needs
Bill Curtis: to be reallocate the resources to the talent that we
Bill Curtis: need for different situations. I'd have to say that that's
Bill Curtis: a perfect example of where you did not need an
Bill Curtis: armed response, and you did not need anybody but someone
Bill Curtis: who's trained on how to deal with someone who has
Bill Curtis: mental illness. We need to figure that out. It's not
Bill Curtis: necessarily a defunding. It is a reallocation of resources and
Bill Curtis: a training of the talent that you need for different situations.
Jane Albrecht: Defunding is a terrible moniker for a number of reasons.
Jane Albrecht: First of all, even when you talk to people who's (inaudible)
Jane Albrecht: defund the police, the first thing they say, " Well,
Jane Albrecht: that's not really what we mean." Secondly, it's not a
Jane Albrecht: zero sum game. You don't always have to take the
Jane Albrecht: money from the police to get money for social services.
Jane Albrecht: Thirdly, it's created a backlash. It should be demilitarize the
Jane Albrecht: police rather than defund the police. That has created as
Jane Albrecht: many problems as it has solved in this whole situation,
Jane Albrecht: in terms of public support for it.
Bill Curtis: So, one of the real complicated issues, Carol, that you've
Bill Curtis: been dealing with that obviously falls into the same conversation
Bill Curtis: is all of your efforts to help the homeless and
Bill Curtis: support the homeless in their challenge with the police. You
Bill Curtis: said that when it comes to homeless people, LA strips
Bill Curtis: them of their humanity. What did you mean?
Carol Sobel: We tend to dehumanize people. We don't value them. We
Carol Sobel: generalize. If we see somebody on the street doing drugs,
Carol Sobel: well then every homeless person is a drug addict when
Carol Sobel: in fact that's not what the statistics are at all,
Carol Sobel: or for women, they were domestic violence victims, they were
Carol Sobel: victims of sexual assault. They earn low money. They got
Carol Sobel: sick. I remember talking to one young woman one time
Carol Sobel: who was, she was only homeless for about three weeks
Carol Sobel: then she got help, but she said it was the
Carol Sobel: most frightening experience of her life. She got sick. She
Carol Sobel: worked through a job that didn't have health insurance. She
Carol Sobel: couldn't pay her rent. Before she knew it, she spent
Carol Sobel: a week in the hospital. She was on the street.
Bill Curtis: Recently, I think you were involved in a case about
Bill Curtis: homeless rights to sleep in a vehicle.
Carol Sobel: Los Angeles had a law that said you could not
Carol Sobel: park or stop a vehicle in the city if you
Carol Sobel: lived in your vehicle at any time, day or night.
Carol Sobel: The federal court appeals court struck that case down, but
Carol Sobel: my clients were being arrested even if they were driving
Carol Sobel: to work during the day. It didn't matter if they
Carol Sobel: had their property in the car, they got arrested for
Carol Sobel: violating the vehicle ordinance. It meant you couldn't go to
Carol Sobel: court in this city in your vehicle. One of my
Carol Sobel: clients in the case who was driving through the city
Carol Sobel: of Los Angeles to get somewhere else, she was pulled
Carol Sobel: over and warned that she would be cited. So, it doesn't
Carol Sobel: matter where you were. If you came into the city of Los Angeles and
Carol Sobel: they thought you lived in your vehicle, they would just
Carol Sobel: cite you.
Bill Curtis: With all the recent layoffs and increasing unemployment, especially with
Bill Curtis: people at the lower end of the economic level, are
Bill Curtis: you seeing a increase in homelessness in Los Angeles and
Bill Curtis: other cities? Also, we hear about those causing an increase
Bill Curtis: in issues of mental illness. If those are combining, is
Bill Curtis: this problem just going to get worse over the next
Bill Curtis: few months?
Carol Sobel: So, the Luskin Institute at UCLA published a study on
Carol Sobel: what the anticipated effects of COVID- 19 will be. Right
Carol Sobel: now, we have eviction prevention in place, but all that's
Carol Sobel: really doing is precluding evictions that arising out of the
Carol Sobel: failure to pay rent after the pandemic. What UCLA estimates
Carol Sobel: is that we will see a doubling, if not a
Carol Sobel: tripling of the number of people who are unhoused in the city.
Carol Sobel: So, we will go from 60,000 people on the street
Carol Sobel: to about 120, 000. I think anybody who lives in the
Carol Sobel: city will tell you that that's already beginning to happen.
Carol Sobel: The other part of that is even though we have
Carol Sobel: an eviction moratorium for anything after the pandemic started, that
Carol Sobel: is not excusing rent, that is simply delaying rent.
Bill Curtis: Where are people supposed to get a bulk payment down
Bill Curtis: the road?
Carol Sobel: Of six or seven months of deferred rent from people
Carol Sobel: who aren't being rehired back to their jobs, as dishwashers,
Carol Sobel: as custodians at places where people no longer congregate. People
Carol Sobel: don't have jobs.
Jane Albrecht: What is the cause of the growing homelessness before the
Jane Albrecht: COVID in Los Angeles? It is a mind boggling number
Jane Albrecht: and a big concern. Is it just the cost of housing?
Carol Sobel: One of the primary drivers is the cost of housing.
Carol Sobel: We pat ourselves on the back about having a living
Carol Sobel: wage. The living wage is I think we get to
Carol Sobel: it next year, the full living wage. It's like $ 15
Carol Sobel: an hour. According to United Way and every other study,
Carol Sobel: you need to work two jobs in order to be
Carol Sobel: able to afford a low grade apartment in the city.
Carol Sobel: They go for about 1, 700. COVID is going to change
Carol Sobel: a little bit and everybody is telling me. I was talking to a friend in Santa
Carol Sobel: Monica last night, that there are a lot of vacancies
Carol Sobel: now because people have moved in with family if they've
Carol Sobel: lost their job. So, some of the rents are coming down,
Carol Sobel: but the basic reality is you cannot live on $ 15
Carol Sobel: an hour. That is a poverty wage. My understanding is
Carol Sobel: the last report from the Los Angeles Homeless Service Authority
Carol Sobel: identified about at least a third of the people were
Carol Sobel: recently homeless because of economic reasons. It used to be
Carol Sobel: that you could work two jobs, but you can't work
Carol Sobel: two jobs anymore if you are working two jobs where
Carol Sobel: you don't have regular hours and you can't schedule from
Carol Sobel: week to week. So, if like some of our clients
Carol Sobel: in Orange County, you work at the Dollar Store and
Carol Sobel: you get your schedule for the next week on Saturday
Carol Sobel: and you have another job, but all of a sudden
Carol Sobel: you're scheduled to work the evening shift and you ride
Carol Sobel: public transportation, it just doesn't work.
Bill Curtis: These are such complicated issues that it would just be nice to know
Bill Curtis: that frankly, Carol, with people like you on the case,
Bill Curtis: hopefully these issues can at least be addressed, kind of
Bill Curtis: led by compassion.
Carol Sobel: Can I say one more thing?
Bill Curtis: Yeah.
Carol Sobel: The Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority, a joint authority that provides the money for
Carol Sobel: shelters and things, they reimbursed the shelter $ 61 a day
Carol Sobel: per person. You do the math on that for a
Carol Sobel: month. That is a rent on an apartment, if you
Carol Sobel: gave them an apartment. Let's say for argument's sake, they
Carol Sobel: had social security of $1, 700 a month, the most you
Carol Sobel: could collect from them under federal law would be 30%
Carol Sobel: of their income for that apartment. That apartment is subsidized.
Carol Sobel: If they're in a shelter, you can not collect any
Carol Sobel: portion of their public income. So, it doesn't even make
Carol Sobel: economic sense to put people in shelters. It's costing us
Carol Sobel: more to shelter them than it would cost us to
Carol Sobel: find housing.
Bill Curtis: Carol, I want to thank you for being with us.
Bill Curtis: We're going to need to ask you to come back
Bill Curtis: because these are complicated issues that frankly need a lot
Bill Curtis: more time. Of course, thanks to Jane Albrecht and Ed
Bill Curtis: Larson. Thank you to Adam Green for connecting us to
Bill Curtis: Carol. We've obviously got a long way to go between
Bill Curtis: here and a society that we can be proud of, but
Bill Curtis: with people like Carol Sobel in the case, hopefully we
Bill Curtis: can navigate this together. Politics: Meet Me in the Middle
Bill Curtis: is produced by Mike Thomas, sound designed by Michael Kennedy,
Bill Curtis: music for Meet Me in the Middle is composed and
Bill Curtis: performed by Celeste and Eric Dick. Please send this episode
Bill Curtis: to your friends and leave us a comment, it really
Bill Curtis: does help our cause. If you have another moment, by
Bill Curtis: the way, make sure that you listened to last week's
Bill Curtis: show with Wade Davis. It is one of our best
Bill Curtis: and it will really make you stop and think. We'll
Bill Curtis: see you next week. Thanks everybody.
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