LA Downtown Clergy Council Releases Position Paper Against Feeding in Skid Row Streets

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE August 28, 2012 CONTACT: Kevin Haah, 213-471-2415 (office), 213-718-4224 (cell), Kevin@newcitychurchla.com PRESS CONFERENCE: Friday, August 31, at 11:30am at Los Angeles Mission _

LOS ANGELES DOWNTOWN CLERGY COUNCIL RELEASES A POSITION PAPER AGAINST FEEDING IN SKID ROW STREETS AND WILL HOLD A PRESS CONFERENCE AT 11:30 AM, AUGUST 31, FRIDAY, AT LOS ANGELES MISSION.
LOS ANGELES, CA. The Downtown Clergy Council, an inter-faith group of clergy members from churches, missions, synagogues, and service providers serving in and around the Central City area, known as Skid Row, released a Position Paper against feeding homeless people in the Skid Row streets, and will hold a press conference at 11:30 a.m. PDT, Friday, Aug. 31, at Los Angeles Mission, 310 Winston Street, Los Angeles, CA 90013, to discuss the Position Paper. The Position Paper is entitled, How to Make the Influence of the Service Community Stronger than the Influence of the Streets! This Position Paper is attached to this press release and available online at www.helpskidrow.org. This Position Paper expresses concerns about some serious quality of life and recovery issues for those living in Skid Row. Many well-meaning individuals and faith groups come to Skid Row to feed or donate clothing in the streets. This Position Paper has been created to give out information designed to educate those who want to help people in Skid Row about the problems feeding and clothing the homeless in the street can cause, and give alternative ways in which people can help those in Skid Row. We as leaders of faith based groups and missions ministering in Skid Row felt that it was important to let other churches, synagogues, and people know that when they come with food and feed homeless people on the Skid Row streets, they are often not helping them; they are enabling them to stay in the streets, said Kevin Haah, the president of Downtown Clergy Council and Lead Pastor of New City Church of LA, a multi-ethnic and multisocioeconomic church in Downtown Los Angeles. People in Skid Row who are homeless on the streets are often in a cycle of addiction, and they need holistic assistancefood, shelter, clothing, medical assistance, recovery, and spiritual assistance, and the local

LA Downtown Clergy Council Releases Position Paper Against Feeding in Skid Row Streets

missions are best equipped to truly help them. We want to help them find their way back home by guiding them into facilities that can really help, said Chaplain Tina Babcock, CEO of Restoration and Recovery Resources Group and the former President of the Downtown Clergy Council. There are four realities that people who regularly minister in Skid Row know: (1) The four major missions serve 8,000 meal a day. There is no shortage of food in Skid Row. (2) These Missions provide holistic assistance to help people on the street, including housing, clothing, counseling, medical assistance, recovery, spiritual help, job training, and transitional assistance. (3) The vast majority of the homeless people on the streets of Skid Row are driven by a vicious cycle of drug addiction, and the best way for them to enter recovery is through getting off the street and entering into recovery programs offered in missions and others non-profit organizations. (4) If they are fed on the streets, it enables them to stay on the streets instead of seeking help in these facilities. So, we want to encourage people to help, but we want to ask them to do so in a way that is really helpful, instead of enabling, Haah said. What people dont know about giving food out on the streets is that it not only keeps them from facilities that can help them, it also pollutes the environment in which they are seeking recovery because unwanted food is thrown on the ground and creates a toxic environment in Skid Row, said Babcock. We want to encourage people to help the homeless in Skid Row and beyond with healthy food and most importantly with services that help elevate them from a state of homelessness to housing, employment and needed supportive relationships, said Herb Smith, CEO of Los Angeles Mission. We want to encourage people to help the homeless people in Skid Row by passing out hygiene kits and water bottles or getting involved in street cleaning or working with the area missions whom are experiencing financial hardship. We are not saying you should not come to Skid Row to help. We are saying you should help in ways that truly help them, said Haah. Here is a partial list of the endorsers of this Position Paper. Most of them will be in attendance at the press conference and available for interview: Kevin Haah, Lead Pastor of New City Church of Los Angeles and President of Downtown Clergy Council (kevin@newcitychurchla.com)

LA Downtown Clergy Council Releases Position Paper Against Feeding in Skid Row Streets

Andy Bale, CEO of Union Rescue Mission (abales@urm.org) Herb Smith, President/CEO of Los Angeles Mission (hsmith@lamission.net) Tina Babcock, CEO of Restoration and Recovery Resources Group (former President of Downtown Clergy Council) (tina@acadc.org) Gus Catipon, Our Lady of Angels Jesse Ross, Lead Pastor of Live Church LA Rabbi Moshe Greenwald, Director, Jewish Community Center, Chabad of Downtown Los Angeles Alex Choi, Lead Pastor of Sovereign Grace Church Sandie Richards, Senior Pastor of First United Methodist Church of Los Angeles Timothy Yee, Senior Pastor of Union Church Dennis Kang, Lead Pastor of City Light Church Angela de Los Santos, Weingard Center Bowen Park, Director of Love LA, Young Nak Celebration Church

The Downtown Clergy Council is an interfaith group of clergies who work in faith-based organizations, churches, temples, and synagogues in Downtown Los Angeles.