"They're not the regular people. They're coming from downtown Los Angeles or from somewhere. But they're not people that we normally see here in Hollywood. Because I've been here since 2002. I see what's happening on the street. There's an influx of people coming in here that I've never seen before. No question. I see the different faces."

Richard, 53, is sitting on a couch in Blessed Sacrament Church's old convent on Selma Avenue in Hollywood, which has housed the Social Services Center since May 1999. He is clean-shaven, has on a short jacket and doesn't look homeless, which he has been off and on for five years.

With a backpack slung over his shoulder, he looks like he could be taking an urban hike on this sunny Friday. But he is here to get a hot meal.

"I've read about the police cracking down on the homeless in skid row," he tells a visitor. "If the crackdown was to help people and put the guys who are mentally gone in hospitals or mental institutions, there's laws against that. You can't force that on anybody.

"Unless you get them a place to go, they've got to go somewhere unless you execute them right on the spot. They're going to go someplace. They're going to disperse. You hit a bunch of marbles in the middle, they splatter.

"We're a rich country," he says, holding out both hands, palms up. "I can't believe we can spend all this money on Iraq and we can't solve the homeless problem or do something about it. I'm not a street person. I had a college education. I'm just down on my luck. But I see all this, and I think it's terrible."

So do service providers from Echo Park to South Los Angeles, and out to Santa Monica and Venice. But probably the hardest hit area has been Hollywood, with its many shelters and agencies catering to runaway youth, but few social services for adults.

So the Social Services Center at Blessed Sacrament has seen a jump in homeless clients - from 30-50 per day to 70-75 toward the end of the month when welfare checks wear thin. The center, which has a staff of three along with volunteers, offers a simple breakfast and hot lunch five days a week, along with clothing, showers, haircuts plus medical and rehabilitation referrals to street people. The center also serves low-income families and individuals.

"The homeless are being pushed out of downtown with no alternative plan," says Yolanda Lichtman, the center's director of social services. "And they're going wherever they can. So we get more homeless now coming for our services, and we're really not prepared for big increases. We try to accommodate everybody, and we try to help the most we can. But, certainly, we're not prepared."

The hands-on administrator points out that her anti-poverty agency is one of the few in Hollywood serving men and women as well as youth. Showers, especially, are in big demand, and the center has had to expand its hours to try to accommodate the influx of new clients.

Her coworker, Alex Salazar, who coordinates services, reports that Thanksgiving and Christmas holiday lunches in 2006 were mobbed. "And I saw a lot of new faces," he says. "I'm just assuming they're probably from downtown, because I've never seen them. And I'm pretty good with names and faces. But I've been seeing a lot of people I haven't seen before."

Both started noticing the change last fall. That is when the Los Angeles Police Department instituted a crackdown on skid row crime by deploying 50 more officers and rousting homeless people camping on sidewalks during the day.

The strategy has worked, with a reported 50-plus percent drop in people living on the street, from 1,900 last September to 875 last month. Many community activists and homeless advocates claim that the crackdown was the result of pressure on City Hall from local businessmen and affluent loft dwellers.

'De-concentrate' policy
Rhonda Meister, executive director of St. Joseph Center in Venice - which assisted more than 2,700 homeless men, women and children last year - has seen the most dramatic rise in this population in outreach programs. The multi-purpose center is serving more homeless people specifically along Venice Boulevard in the eastern part of the oceanside community.

But over the last year, she has also witnessed a rise in the number of homeless families coming to St. Joseph, which she credits to Los Angeles County's decision to no longer refer these destitute families to agencies on skid row. She says this shows that the LAPD crackdown isn't the only reason for homeless people fleeing the inner-city.

Meister finds it ironic that back in the 1980s the county made the landmark decision to concentrate social services and homeless people on skid row, yet recently it decided that a more enlightened policy would be to "de-concentrate" these same individuals and services throughout Los Angeles County. (To date, none of the proposed regional centers have opened.)

She is also concerned by the complete lack of coordination in the current homeless plan.

"When an action is taken in one part of the city without regional planning and without an increase in services, it's going to be swept to other places," Meister points out. "I think some of it's coming west to Santa Monica and Venice. I think a lot of it is going a little south of downtown, and they're beginning to feel it in East L.A. And, absolutely, Hollywood is bearing the brunt.

"So when this social problem just shifts to other places, there isn't the capacity in the system, without additional resources and without the political will. If there was the capacity, we wouldn't be the homeless capital of the United States."

Sister Julia Mary Farley, who founded and heads the Good Shepherd Center for Homeless Women, has not really noticed an increase in clients because the center's emergency shelters and transitional residences in Los Angeles, which can accommodate some 160 adults and children, are usually full all the time.

But the Sister of St. Joseph of Carondelet, who has been working with the homeless since 1984, believes strongly that simply kicking people off skid row is an ill-conceived, short-term solution at best.

"They're human beings," she says. "They're our brothers and sisters. And so, we the government are responsible for them ultimately. And if we would just get the money to open more shelters and transitional places across the city and county, then residents in different areas wouldn't have this fear of the homeless.

"If you get to know homeless people, then you know that they're people who are down and out, and just need help in getting back to society. And even though government officials say each area, neighborhood should take care of its own, the residents of those areas are still saying 'NIMBY,' not in my back yard.

"So it's a problem," she adds. "But it has to be resolved."

'You can't sleep here'
Anthony and Julian are 26, married and homeless. They met growing up in Pomona. Both lived on skid row but moved to Hollywood years ago. Right now they are staying at a hotel, paid for by a private social agency. On this Saturday, which is part of their weekly routine, they're having a hot lunch at Blessed Sacrament's Social Services Center, and taking a shower.

"We left downtown because it was just harassment by the police," Anthony reports. "'You can't sleep here.' 'You can't do this.' 'You can't do that.'"

"They call it 'urban camping,'" adds Julian, nodding. "There's no loitering in front of buildings, but there's no sign posted there. And if the cops see your bags, you've got to move. If they don't know you're homeless, they don't bother you."

He says, "They pick on us every two minutes: 'You've got to go away.' Day or night."

"We were sleeping in the little park, behind abandoned building and places like that," she explains. "Basically, we weren't bothering anybody."

Anthony and Julian no longer venture to skid row. They've talked to folks from downtown who have relocated to Hollywood and heard it's even worse since the police added more patrol officers.

"I know a lot of people who have moved from skid row recently," he says. "The LAPD were bad a long time ago, but are even 'badder' now."

His wife is nodding again. "They accused me of being a hooker, and I'm not," she declares. "We don't go down there anymore. We can't stand it."