Public agencies are funding private security guards in homeless shelters and on the street, opening a new front in the state’s housing crisis — one ripe for violence and civil rights issues, but th…
The former hairdresser had spent years sleeping in her car and parks around Anaheim, near the suburban salons where she used to work. One day a social worker told Powitzky about an old piano shop recently converted into a shelter.
Several lawsuits, meanwhile, allege that security companies, shelter operators and government regulators have failed to properly train and oversee guards, who in some cases are paid just over minimum wage and struggling to stay housed themselves. The O Lot Safe Sleeping site at Balboa Park in San Diego on March 22, 2024. Photo by Kristian Carreon for CalMatters
That’s why she was initially reassured by the uniformed guards at the front door of Anaheim’s La Mesa shelter in 2019. The shelter was built by the city of Anaheim and run by the nonprofit Illumination Foundation, which then contracted with L.A.-based security company Protection America. The foundation did not respond to multiple requests for comment about how much they paid the guards, or the allegations by residents.
Just around the corner was where, three decades earlier, Dogon saw the first of what he called “the red shirts” — uniformed, armed private guards hired by a local tax-funded business group charged with cleaning up downtown. He’s been fighting them ever since., or BIDs — a right to spend public money on private security.
For security companies, it all adds up to surging demand from clients who increasingly expect them to replicate law enforcement, complete with guns, body cams and pricey liability insurance, said Robert Simpson, owner of Fresno County Private Security. It’s a far cry from earlier eras of “observe and report” security, he said, when guards were trained to call police for social issues or more heated conflicts.
Small local security companies. Bigger regional firms winning contracts across the state. Global private security behemoths that dabble in homeless shelters. In an email, Urban Alchemy’s community and government affairs head Kirkpatrick Tyler said, “Urban Alchemy practitioners do life-saving work in our communities that is more difficult than most of us could imagine.” When it comes to security issues, he said workers are taught to use “emotional bank accounts” and follow a six-step process to de-escalate: “If at any point during this process, a person becomes violent or has a weapon, practitioners will call the authorities.
“I asked the guy there how much he was getting paid, and it was $19 an hour,” Portillo said. “I was like, ‘Wow, that’s a lot for just sitting there.’” Tyler of Urban Alchemy said, “Every large organization deals with some HR issues. When these issues arise, we take them seriously, and we do our best to handle them fairly.”Three hours inland in Fresno, a different type of reckoning over homelessness and private security is playing out — over what happens in extreme cases, when clashes with armed guards turn deadly.
“You’re going to have the Monday quarterbacks — ‘Why didn’t he do this?’ ‘Why didn’t he do that?’” Simpson said. “Until you’re in the moment, you can’t quarterback that.” The guard in the Gutierrez case took additional courses at a local community college, and work logs filed in the case show that he came into contact with homeless people often: asking “three vagrants” to leave a Family Dollar store, removing a man from the Little Caesar’s Pizza dumpster, moving along people sleeping in bushes and alleys all along his route — “no use of force required,” he often wrote in the logs.
United Kingdom Latest News, United Kingdom Headlines
Similar News:You can also read news stories similar to this one that we have collected from other news sources.
Meth, Death And Abuse: Inside The Private Security Forces Patrolling California’s HomelessPublic agencies are funding private security guards in homeless shelters and on the street, opening a new front in the state’s housing crisis — one ripe for violence and civil rights issues, but thin on oversight.
Read more »
Meth, death and abuse: Inside the private security forces patrolling California’s homelessCalifornia’s homeless shelter security industry is opening a new front in the housing crisis that’s ripe for abuse but thin on oversight.
Read more »
CBP finds millions in meth inside carrots shipment at US-Mexico borderOfficials estimate that the 2,900 pounds of meth, which was hidden in 574 individual packages, would have put millions of dollars into the cartel's coffers.
Read more »
Bass announces more Inside Safe operations; 20 people brought inside from San Fernando Valley campBass also announced an Inside Safe operation in East Hollywood
Read more »
Man found inside washing machine after barricading himself inside Cumberland garageDetectives believed the suspect was targeting Hispanic victims on East Washington Street.
Read more »
Inside a new plan to bring public transportation to Red RocksA Denver City Council member and a Jefferson County commissioner have joined social justice leaders in pressing for public transportation that ensures easier, safer access to and from the venue nea…
Read more »