Pope’s Visit May Curb Services at Skid Row Mission

Security measures surrounding the September visit of Pope John Paul II may force Los Angeles’ largest Skid Row mission to shut down or curtail services to the homeless, it was learned Wednesday.

Officials declined to discuss details, but George Caywood, executive director of the Union Rescue Mission on Main Street, acknowledged that there would be some “relocation” of services.

Capt. Rick Batson, commander of the Los Angeles Police Department’s Central Division, said, “The Union Rescue Mission may or may not have some of its activities relocated” during the pontiff’s 48-hour visit.

The mission, which houses nearly 700 people each night, is next door to St. Vibiana’s Cathedral, where the Pope will stay overnight Sept. 15 and 16. Security arrangements affecting the mission have been under discussion for several days, police and other officials said.

The 96-year-old mission shelters 471 transient men nightly, with 86 in beds and 385 on chairs in the chapel. It also houses another 185 men in various rehabilitation programs and 15 employees. The mission serves 2,000 meals a day.

“I can’t get into measures that we’re taking, but we’re going to take the security measures necessary to make sure the Pope is in a secure environment, keeping in mind the normal daily lives of the people that live there,” said William Corbett, U.S. Secret Service spokesman.

The Secret Service is providing security throughout the pontiff’s nine-city U.S. visit.

The Union Rescue Mission is a nondenominational Protestant facility. Sources close to the mission said officials there do not want to appear hostile to the Roman Catholic leader’s visit. At the same time, they are concerned over how to maintain services.

“We’re working on a plan so that we can still take care of the people we always do,” Caywood said.

Overall, there are about 2,200 mission and shelter beds available throughout Skid Row. At Los Angeles Mission, Director Mark Holsinger said his facility, about three blocks away from the Union Rescue Mission, provides about 600 daily meals and houses 78 homeless each night.

But there are few vacancies for beds, he said, adding, “We could handle a few more, I guess . . . maybe 10. . . . We’d try to feed everybody.”

Urban Campground

The potential dislocation of homeless from the Union Rescue Mission comes at time when the city has been seeking alternative housing for the up to 600 homeless residents of a temporary urban campground at 320 S. Santa Fe Ave.

Last week, Mayor Tom Bradley asked that the campground, scheduled to close Monday, be extended 44 days. According to Ali Webb, the mayor’s spokeswoman, the Pope’s visit was not a factor in Bradley’s request, which must be approved by both the Los Angeles City Council and the Southern California Rapid Transit District, which owns the site where the campground is located.

“The deciding factor was that we think we can . . . find another building or find more mobile units,” she said. “This gives us a little more time.”

But some of the homeless said they believe that police sweeps in February, March and June in the Skid Row area, which led the city to establish the encampment, resulted from the announced papal visit.

“Businessmen complained for years about people sleeping on the streets, but there wasn’t anything done about it until the Pope said he wanted to come,” David Bryant, leader of the Los Angeles Union of the Homeless, a homeless activist group, said at the campground.

‘Out of the Way’

“They would like to keep us all out of the way, where the Pope won’t pass by; keep us isolated,” he added. “I wish we could get the Pope down here and tell him what’s going on.”

The pontiff is scheduled to conduct a prayer service at St. Vibiana’s Sept. 15 and will stay at the residence of Archbishop Roger Mahony, adjacent to the Cathedral, both nights that he is in Los Angeles.

Los Angeles Archdiocese officials Wednesday did not return phone calls seeking comment.