CITY HALL — Residents blasted the City Council on Tuesday for continuing to support the operation of a winter homeless shelter near Bob Hope Airport after police discovered four sex offenders had stayed there.
Council members responded with firm criticism of shelter operator Union Rescue Mission for being misleading about its previously stated policies of screening shelter residents and prohibiting walk-ins to prevent homeless people from walking through the community surrounding the National Guard Armory, where the program is taking place.
Residents have spotted and taken photographs of homeless people urinating, loitering in the community and spending time in nearby Pacific Park, even after officials from the city and Union Rescue Mission assured the community that shelter residents would be bused in and out of the area to avoid loitering in the neighborhood around the Valhalla Drive site.