Homeless

With its storefront tributes to Southern California's surfing culture and L.A.'s hipster elite, the leafy dinosaur topiary and gleaming signs that promise multiple movies, Santa Monica's Third Street Promenade is a popular destination for tens of thousands each week. In the middle of the night, it is a destination of another sort for a smattering of the city's chronically homeless. It is those inhabitants whom social workers hoped to encounter early Monday.

Almost half of Santa Monica's homeless population is at risk of dying prematurely, is predominantly white and male, and has spent more than a decade sleeping on the streets, a city report found Thursday. The report concluded a seven-day project that involved 60 city employees, county social service agencies and Common Ground, a New York-based nonprofit agency that conducts surveys on the homeless. Of 277 people counted sleeping on the streets last week, the group was able to interview 261 of them during the early morning hours Monday through Wednesday.

Former construction worker John Dutchover found his own tiny piece of Brentwood last year, staking out a space on San Vicente Boulevard for the recreational vehicle that -- with a bed, refrigerator and microwave -- also serves as his home. The Gulf War veteran said he picked the spot largely because it was close to the leafy Veterans Affairs campus, where he receives medical treatment.

Thirteen-year-old Kevin Cedano steps onto the stoop of the Ohio Hotel. "Watch out for the doo-doo." The words tumble out through the peach fuzz on Kevin's upper lip. They come with no hint of judgment, or pain. He might as well be warning you about a pothole or a low-lying tree branch, though the deposit has been left outside his home, and not by a dog but a woman in a blue cardigan who is now toddling off down Ceres Avenue in Los Angeles.

Dwight Smith considers housing the homeless his mission in life. So when the local building industry offered to donate time and materials to renovate Isaiah House, the Catholic Worker-sponsored shelter he directs in Santa Ana, Smith jumped at the chance. Ten months later, however, the volunteer contractors -- hit hard by a mortgage meltdown and industry lull that have left many unemployed -- had to abandon the job.

Supervisors approved $875,000 Tuesday to open three drop-in centers for mentally ill homeless young men in Irwindale, Santa Monica and Hollywood. The centers, which will be operated by Pacific Clinics, the Los Angeles Gay and Lesbian Center, and Step-up on Second Street, will provide showers, meals, clothing and mental health services for 16- to 25-year-olds who are living in the streets or have an unstable home life.

Citing health and safety concerns, the city of Ontario next week will dramatically reduce the size of a homeless encampment known as Tent City by expelling those residents who cannot prove clear ties to the city. Starting Monday, anyone who can't provide documents showing they once lived in Ontario will be given a bus or taxi ride back to where they came from. The homeless will be fitted with color-coded bands around their arms or wrists that will designate their status.

Dozens of Ontario police and code enforcement officers descended upon the homeless encampment known as Tent City early Monday, separating those who could stay from those to be evicted. Large, often confused, crowds formed ragged lines behind police barricades where officers handed out color-coded wristbands. Blue meant they were from Ontario and could remain. Orange indicated they had to provide more proof to avoid ejection, and white meant they had a week to leave.

A former car salesman testified Thursday that he sold a Mercury Sable station wagon to one of two elderly women accused of using the vehicle to kill a homeless man in a murder-for-life-insurance scheme. Mario Medina is the first eyewitness to tie Olga Rutterschmidt, 75, to the car that prosecutors say was the murder weapon in the death of Kenneth McDavid, 50, in an alley in West Los Angeles in 2005.

It wasn't the typical murder weapon viewing. Jurors had to squat, kneel and even lie on their stomachs to get a good look at the instrument that two septuagenarian women allegedly used to kill a homeless man to collect his life insurance. Prosecutors say the 1999 Mercury Sable station wagon killed Kenneth McDavid. It was taken to the basement of the courthouse Friday as part of their weeklong attempt to tie the vehicle to Helen Golay, 77, and Olga Rutterschmidt, 75.