In a city known for abundance, dinners for the homeless have now been suspended.
In the midst of a media feeding frenzy over the past two weeks, both Malibu United Methodist Church and Standing on Stone (SOS) announced they would be suspending their weekly dinner service, following what they described as pressure from the city. However, city officials are insisting they did not—and could not—force the organizations to halt the meals.
After some city leaders quietly asked local churches to stop the practice due to a slew of complaints from residents who reported an increase in crime, the story blew up, gaining national attention. Vitriol by critics of the suspension was so hateful members of the city council received death threats.
Weekly host Malibu United Methodist acquiesced.
“We will continue to inform friends that Wednesday nighters have been suspended,” host Kay Gabbard confirmed. Shifra Wilder of the nonprofit (SOS) that helped put together Thursday dinners at three alternating churches also confirmed the suspension.
Emotions are running high in the city where groups like SOS have been hosting dinners for the homeless for 17 years. This is not the first time the group has been asked to change locations. Initiating at the now defunct Vineyard Church, SOS served dinners Thursday evenings at Webster Elementary for 10 years until 2013, when a new principal came on board.
“I think it’s incredibly sad, but I understand how it happened,” said CART (Community Assistance Resource Team) founding member Carol Moss. “I sympathize with them.”
Critics complain the dinners only attracted more homeless people into the community who weren’t leaving.
“I don’t think that’s entirely true,” Wilder countered. “The people that would generally come from Santa Monica and Venice would pack up, get on the bus and go back.”
CART and SOS say they’ll be working behind the scenes in the meantime to help homeless people get back on their feet. However, CART stopped fulfilling requests for tents and sleeping bags when “it became apparent it was drawing people here,” according to Moss. “Our mandate is to work for the community—not for the homeless. It’s a premise that if you stabilize the homeless it benefits the whole community.”
On Monday night, Mayor Skylar Peak said he was surprised and “frustrated” to hear the churches would be suspending the meals.
“I was a little bit astounded to hear that the church—on their own account—decided to stop doing the meals,” Peak said. “The city has no authority to tell the church to stop them. I was frustrated to hear they’d stopped doing it—that was on their own accord.”
Now, there is talk of moving dinners for the homeless to a more centralized area, away from neighborhoods, including hosting them at Malibu City Hall. The subject was brought up at a recent roundtable meeting and is favored by at least two council members—Peak and Jefferson “Zuma Jay” Wagner.
“These wonderful charities that donate their time and funds to helping the homeless, which is something we should all encourage, we could do it in a more commercial area,” Wagner commented in an interview with The Malibu Times. Favoring a central location “near the Malibu [Labor] Exchange, which the city helps with financial contributions, we have the huge county facility which is being remodeled into the junior college campus and the 5,700-square-foot Sheriff’s Department. When those facilities are complete there will be a kitchen facility and public bathrooms in the county facility near City Hall. There will be a sheriff’s presence. It’s convenient. It’s downtown central. It seemed a legitimate, logical place to have these wonderful generous people help out with the homeless.”
Wagner said he introduced the idea on Nov. 6.
“Everyone there thought it was something to pursue. I don’t have a problem with that. I guess we just have to find a way to accommodate those needs because City Hall is not open all the time and we don’t have a sheriff’s presence there all the time.”
Peak agreed City Hall was a possibility.
“Perhaps City Hall is an option with a long-term goal of a permanent location and integrating services for those less fortunate or on hard times from our community,” Peak wrote in an email to The Malibu Times. “Each time this program has moved from OLM to Malibu Pres to Methodist there have been numerous complaints from neighbors and pre-schools. Thus it’s probably best to come up with a better location and funding for something more permanent.”
Council member Rick Mullen hasn’t endorsed the City Hall suggestion yet and is taking a more studied approach.
“The homeless challenge facing Malibu is a complex problem with no easy solutions,” Mullen said. “We will succeed as a team if we make decisions based on what actually is effective from a logical and not an emotional perspective.”
Commenting on the city’s suggestion to suspend dinners, Moss added, “The dinners are easy. They are low hanging fruit. But they’ve had a lot of complaints from people in the neighborhoods. So, that’s a real problem. I think they have to be moved. Hopefully we’ll get City Hall.
