Boy, 7, Meets a NIMBY World

"This is why we're pushing for Hope Gardens," said Bales, whose Rescue Mission bought an abandoned housing compound near Sylmar where it hopes to provide transitional housing and job training for 275 women and children trapped on skid row with nowhere to go. But there's opposition, Bales said, by "some neighbors who live four miles, two mountains and a canyon away."

L.A. County Supervisor Mike Antonovich could tell those NIMBYs to quit their yapping. Instead, he says through his flack that he hasn't made up his mind and must be sensitive to community concerns.

Heart of gold, that man. I'd pay honest cash to see Antonovich try to survive on skid row, but I'm not sure the current residents would want his kind in their neighborhood.

Antonovich's staff claims he's not the ogre we might think, because he did kick a few bucks to a Pasadena shelter. But the supervisor wasn't happy, according to his flack, with the $100-million price tag on last week's county proposal for housing, regional stabilization centers and other homeless services.

Finally, there's a chance of making some real progress when you combine the county plan with a $50-million housing pledge by Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and millions more from the state Mental Health Services Act, and the NIMBYs are lining up like dogs at a fire hydrant.

"It isn't going to go down well if this city was chosen for one of these centers," Burbank Mayor Jef Vander Borght told The Times, "and I suspect it will be much the same in other cities. We wouldn't want to house the county homeless population."

Beautiful. Looks like Antonovich has a vice president for his troglodyte club.

What is it with these guys? Given the astounding wealth in the Southern California real estate market, public officials ought to be embracing creative solutions like inclusionary zoning, which would require developers to build more low-income units. Instead we've got political cowards afraid to jeopardize campaign contributions and incur the wrath of fellow NIMBYs.

County Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky told me that even if the county plan announced last week beats back challenges, it won't rescue everyone. But the housing package, along with a rent subsidy program for 900 people, is a start, and it could help someone in Elizabeth Brown's shoes.

As for Antonovich and Vander Borght, I'd like to close with a few more details on the children they seem willing to turn their backs on.