L.A.’s Indigent Shun Free Bus Ticket Home

Like a lot of people, Gerald Harris loves L.A. Even the jolt of being out of work, out of money and out on the streets makes him no more eager to return to his native New York City.

“I’m going to stick it out,” said Harris, 40, a graphic arts director who became homeless shortly after arriving in Los Angeles four months ago. “There’s no point in going back.”

Social service workers have discovered that a lot of homeless people share Harris’ view. Despite the rigors of street life in Los Angeles, most have turned a cold shoulder to a county program that provides transplanted transients with free one-way bus tickets back home.

The lines for Greyhound and Continental Trailways pale in comparison to the lines for general relief and shelter. Mary Lee Gray, who handles social service issues for Supervisor Deane Dana, said transients still see Los Angeles as a Land of Milk and Honey, even if they can’t afford to buy any milk and honey.

“I seriously doubt whether there are many people requesting to go back where they came from,” Gray said. “We have the most liberal general relief program in the country.”

Los Angeles County offers up to $280 a month in general relief, while there is no comparable program in many states.

Response Has Been Tepid

The Department of Public Social Services, which runs the Return to Residence Program, concedes that the response to the offer has been tepid, even though more than half of the county’s homeless people might qualify for free tickets. Records show the program attracted about 150 transients a month last year, while other general relief programs drew about 4,450 a month.

Glenn Jordan, district director of the downtown social services office that processes the bulk of the applications, said the free bus ticket is usually a last resort for people who might otherwise be forced to hop a freight train or thumb a ride to reach their destinations.

“Many of the people who come in have just been robbed,” Jordan said. “Or they have gotten sick and been referred to our office by a clinic. Others are just down on their luck.”

Jordan said the program works fairly simply. Those who apply for a ticket must prove that they have some form of support back home by providing the county with the names of relatives or other contacts. Once their papers have been processed, they find a free ticket waiting at the bus station. Unlike other tickets, however, it cannot be exchanged for cash. Jordan said most people can complete their applications and be on their way home within the same day.

Jeff, a 23-year-old Florida native who asked that his last name not be used, received a free bus ticket home on Friday. He became homeless and wound up sleeping at the downtown bus station last week when a man who had given him a ride to Los Angeles disappeared with all of his money. Jeff said he had no interest in staying, but also had no way to leave until he heard about the bus program.

“It’s really hard to say what I would have done without this,” he said. “It’s great that the county is willing to help people who don’t want to be here.”

Barbara McMahon, operations director at a Skid Row social service agency called the Weingart Center, said those such as Jeff who prefer to leave are the exceptions to the rule. Her office usually does not encourage transients to use the bus program unless they suffer from mental illness or have no chance of being gainfully employed in Los Angeles.

The Weingart Center director said most of the homeless come to Los Angeles for the same reasons as the millions of other people who have settled here; mainly for the promise of a better life. And like the others, they become rooted in their communities--whether that happens to be a cardboard box along a Skid Row alley, a shelter or a plot of sand at Venice Beach.

“People want to stay,” McMahon said. “That’s why they came here to begin with. They like the unrestricted environment . . . the pleasant weather. And they feel they will do better in California than anyplace else. It’s rare that somebody picks up with nothing and leaves to go cross country if things were decent at home. It’s usually those who are disenchanted.”

Rhonda Meister, director of the St. Joseph Center, a Venice social service agency, said her office uses the bus program sparingly because of the same considerations. Betty Macias of the Turning Point shelter in Santa Monica said more people might use the free bus program if the county did a better job of publicizing it. She said many social service counselors are not familiar with the way the plan works.

The bus program, which predates the upsurge in homelessness, is part of a vast network of social services offered by the county. Jordan said practically anyone from outside of the county is eligible for a free ticket home if the destination happens to be in the continental United States. The county will not send anyone to Honolulu or Nome.

“We don’t just send people anywhere they want to go,” Jordan said. “This has to be a return to residence. That’s the way the regulation is written.”

Regulations prohibit a person from using a free bus ticket more than once a year. Johnson could not say how many people might be eligible for the program, but studies indicate that a sizable portion of the county’s homeless population, which some people say may number as many as 33,000, comes from outside the area.

A recent study for the city’s Community Development Department indicated that 19% of the homeless have been in Los Angeles less than six months. Seven percent had been here less than a year. And 23% had been in the area less than five years. Together they comprised nearly 50% of the people clustered on Skid Row and in other areas.

The study also indicated, however, that a quarter of the homeless had come from the economically depressed oil states, where there is little incentive for them to return. “For many of them, the situation back home is far worse,” said the Turning Point’s Macias.