Lost souls expose the dangerous inhumanity in L.A.’s homelessness policies, and illustrate why “housing first” often fails

Part One of an occasional series: Bryan’s story

(Originally published April 27, 2023; updated June 3, 2023)

Feb. 17, 2020 Santa Monica Police Department mug shot of Bryan Dibucci. He was living in “permanent supportive housing” when he assaulted a woman on the street. It was the latest of many arrests over 25 years. Courtesy SMPD.

A big part of the reason Angelenos retain a sense of empathy for homeless people, despite the mayhem that the crisis has unleashed in so many communities, is that we encounter them every day. Homelessness is no longer confined to locations we traditionally expect to see the hardest cases, like Skid Row. These days it is everywhere, from the Venice Boardwalk to the San Gabriel Mountains, from L.A.’s dense urban cores to its most far-flung, sprawling suburbs. We cannot look away even if we want to. For all the talk about people becoming desensitized, the fact is that we witness human suffering all the time, on a scale that is almost impossible to not feel no matter how many examples we see. This is new in Los Angeles, and we are still trying to come to grips with the consequences.

At the same time, residents have watched with mounting frustration and even anger as homeless people cycle in and out of the hall of mirrors that some have come to refer to as the homeless industrial complex. They see people who desperately need mental health care or addiction treatment, and often both, shunted from program to program, site to site, nonprofit to nonprofit, only to end up right back where they started, often in worse condition than when the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority (LAHSA) and the nonprofits got to them in the first place.

Here’s the thing: Politicians, city and county officials, the nonprofit sector, and most of the media insist that homelessness is first, last, and always a housing crisis, which can only be solved through “permanent supportive housing.” Never mind that the words “homelessness” and “permanent” should never appear in the same sentence: The message has become an overwhelming drumbeat, unfortunately collectively perpetuated by an otherwise well-meaning media, that increasingly defies both common sense and millions of people’s lived experiences, both housed and unhoused.

We all know something is terribly wrong but we cannot muster the evidence to prove it. The all aspect report is setting out to change that. In the coming months the blog will profile homeless people from different parts of L.A. The stories will be based on combinations of personal experience, research, and interviews. While readers will draw their own conclusions two basic themes are worth noting at the outset:

First, the stories reveal the sheer inhumanity of our current approach to the homeless humanitarian crisis. California has spent twenty years and billions of taxpayer dollars — a staggering $17.5 billion just in the last four years — only to create a bureaucratic Frankenstein’s monster. While LAHSA and nonprofit executives enjoy six figure salaries and extensive benefits, as well as the job security that comes with “doing the right thing” on the government’s (which is to say, the people’s) dime, the lack of actual on the ground services and support, much less continuity and consistency, leave huge portions of the state’s more than 171,000 homeless people to languish in unspeakable conditions. 171,000 is the official number; as has been widely documented, including in this blog and an October 2022 story I helped produce for CBS Investigates, the true number is much, much higher. It’s enough to make reasonable people wonder if the city, county, and state aren’t in some ways hell bent not on solving the homeless crisis but sustaining it. After all, if they really did solve homelessness one and for all those executives would have to find new jobs.

Second, as a corollary the stories show the extent to which in practice the one-size-fits-all “permanent supportive housing” model is rarely permanent or supportive, and often barely qualifies as housing. Time after time, in story after story, we see homeless people in the most dire of conditions left to navigate a hopelessly Byzantine network of service providers and city and county bureaucracies that ultimately fails even the ones lucky enough to secure housing, and often in the worst ways imaginable. In September 2020, for example, we told the story of an elderly, disabled homeless woman named Shauna, who we met when the nonprofit St. Joseph Center literally attempted to dump her in a restaurant parking lot that was vacant due to the COVID shutdowns. Her motel voucher had run out, you see. Meanwhile, earlier this year the CEO of St. Joseph Center at the time, VaLecia Adams Kellum, was named Executive Director of LAHSA, with a salary of $430,000 a year. This is how a system not only perpetuates failure but rewards it.

Today’s story is about Bryan Dibucci, a homeless man in Santa Monica I got to know over the last several years and who agreed to have his story told. We start with his story both because of how long he’s been homeless in L.A. and Santa Monica — over a quarter of a century — and because it captures so many of the recurring themes in our collective failed efforts to staunch the bleeding.

Bryan’s story

I first met Bryan four or five years ago. He’s in his early 50s, rail thin with a shock of brown hair, piercing brown eyes flecked with amber, and a smile that comes easily in conversation — that is, on the rare occasion he is in full control of his faculties. Which, unfortunately, isn’t very often. He got into the habit of posting up on the block in Santa Monica where I lived at the time, leaning against the same tree around for what I came to think of as his “five o’clock meltdown.” He would unleash streams of profanity that nearly stripped the paint off of nearby buildings. He was particularly fond of the n-word, which he deployed liberally and in combination with various other racial and sexual epithets. He was nothing if not inventive. His episodes lasted anywhere from a few minutes to hours, extended verbal assaults on the psyche of the neighborhood. That included the 300-odd people who live in the retirement community across the street, several of whom I knew and who had conveyed their fear that the screaming man soon could escalate into actual violence. Which, as it turned out, was a well-founded concern.

The episodes were not recent developments in Bryan’s life. According to a Los Angeles Times story way back in December 1996, he was arrested for verbally and physically assaulting a Black man in Westwood — including the use of “racial slurs” as the paper reported. Other previous arrests included assaulting and biting a man in the neck in 2013, attempted breaking and entering in 2011, and public exposure and urination in 2007. According to a contemporaneous story in the L.A. Times, in 1996 he was accused of attacking a black man in Westwood, using racial epithets and burning his palm with a cigarette. As I got to know him over the ensuing months he shared other stories of his often violent behavior. I would witness several episodes myself.

There are not enough layers of soundproof glass and insulation in L.A. County to muffle Bryan with a full head of steam. Between families, the retirement community, and a nearby park there are plenty of sensitive areas in the neighborhood. It’s not a place where someone should be screaming, much less profanity and racial invective, day after day after day — not that there are any appropriate places outside mental wards. One day during a particularly rancid rant I finally went downstairs and confronted him (due to pressure from the allegedly “progressive” City Council, Santa Monica police have long since stopped responding to most complaints related to disturbing the peace or disorderly conduct, or even minor physical assaults; these days people rarely call 911 for such emergencies).

Life on Heartbreak Street

Indeed, heartbreak is the only word to describe Bryan’s life, and the lives of tens of thousands like him languishing on the streets of the wealthiest city in the wealthiest state in the wealthiest nation in human history. After I talked to him he stayed away for a week or so, only to return one weekend for a new meltdown. Back outside I went. This time he actually smiled and nodded in recognition when he saw me approach. There was still plenty of screaming but there was also a sort of rudimentary nonverbal communication. I said something to the effect of, “Look, I know this isn’t your fault but there are families with kids in this neighborhood, and that’s an old folks’ home right there.”

Again he nodded, and again put a hand over his mouth to muffle his own screams. Only this time it didn’t work. His gestures and tics went from agitated to violent and menacing. I had no choice but to escalate. This could not be allowed to become the norm in the neighborhood. Which is when I experienced another one of those moments in L.A.’s homeless humanitarian crisis when you lose all hope, when you start to feel broken inside yourself. Because here’s the thing: There were no bad guys in the situation. When he’s not in the throes of a psychotic episode I would learn that Bryan is a nice guy. Affable, even. There was no malice or ill intent on his part or mine, nor would there ever be. He wasn’t screaming because he hated me or my neighbors, and I didn’t confront him because I was angry at him. No one was trying to hurt anyone and no one was trying to prove anything. Bryan, me, the families nearby, other neighbors who’d been confronted by other homeless people in the community — there wasn’t a bad bone among us. It was a matter of a mentally ill individual trying to wrangle his demons and a neighborhood trying to sustain a modicum of civilized society. In a very real way everyone in the situation was trying to do the right thing, to do good.

And so with no ill intent I became a bad guy, getting in his face, shoving him, and forcing him to leave a rare place that his addled mind told him was safe (safe places are enormously important to mentally ill people, for obvious reasons). This is what the City and County of Los Angeles and the State of California, have wrought: “Sorry, man, I know you’re experiencing a corner of hell the rest of us cannot even begin to fathom. I know that what you really need is shelter, a warm meal, and a kind word from someone who actually knows how to help you. But in the meantime you’re gonna have find somewhere else to descend into the Ninth Circle because there are 300 old folks across the street who you’re scaring to death right now.” It was as cold-hearted as it gets, and I felt as low as one can go. But in a very real way it was him or the neighborhood.

Consider that even Bryan, in the depths of his psychotic episodes, was trying to help me help him. Indeed it’s likely that part of the reason he came back was that it was one place where someone actually had engaged him like a human being in a meaningful way for the first time in a long time, even if it was a confrontation. And yet because of the current state of things, face to face with a fellow human being in an acute moment of distress there was nothing whatsoever to offer him except a bottle of water and, “Get out of here.”

As time progressed we got to know each other somewhat. He no longer posted up on my street for his daily meltdowns. I’d see him around town and we’d talk. I learned that he’s originally from Michigan, from a family of some means, and has been in L.A. since the mid-1990s when, as he told me, “My family couldn’t handle me anymore.”

In his early twenties he was an aspiring artist and chef when one day he had what he described as his “whoops.” He began experiencing hallucinations and hearing voices, as well has having uncontrollable outbursts like the ones in front of my building. He did not talk much about his family except to say they didn’t know how to deal with his spiraling mental illness. He’d been living on the streets of West Los Angeles and Santa Monica since arriving on a Greyhound bus. He has vague plans for the future. “If I can get stable I’d love to try and sell some of my art.” But when I asked him if he was able to stay on his medication for extended periods, he silently shook his head.

A long time passed without us crossing paths after our initial interactions. He’d given me his cell phone number and from time to time I would text him to see about his well being, to no avail. Every now and again I was certain I could hear him screaming from somewhere else in Santa Monica, like a ghost crying out for help.

A shot at redemption

On the morning of Thanksgiving 2019 I was walking out of the grocery store with some last minute sundries when I bumped into Bryan. He was a different man than the one I’d encountered on the streets. He had a new set of clothes, his skin had cleared up, his eyes looked bright. He looked like the guy I’d had that one conversation with that one day. The tempest of tics and muscle contractions were absent from his face and neck.

He called my name and rushed over. He said, “I got an apartment!”

He threw his arms around me and we embraced like old friends. At the time it was a bona fide Thanksgiving miracle. He invited me over to see his new place the following week, and I eagerly accepted. After languishing on a waiting list for years (he never was clear how long exactly) he had been accepted for a unit at Step Up On Second, a nonprofit that provides services and permanent supportive housing to homeless people.

At least, they provide it in theory. There was no security guard or door person in the building. Step Up on Second residents simply buzz in visitors. I could have been carrying a backpack full of drugs or other contraband. I could have been armed. A few dazed residents roamed the lobby and hallways like zombies in the cold open to a horror movie. Inside, Bryan’s apartment was reminiscent of a jail cell — four barren white walls with a small window on the far side, a half galley kitchen with a mini-fridge and microwave. The worst part was that his window overlooked the patio of a restaurant and bar next door. Bryan, who like many homeless people is an alcoholic in addition to his mental illness, described what it was like to lay in bed on weekend nights for hours, listening to people drinking and having a good time. “I can hear the clink of the glasses,” he said. Indeed, while we talked the conversations and laughter from the patio were audible in the room. Meanwhile, in the space of an hour he downed five beers from a six pack. I drank the sixth even though it was 11am on a Wednesday.

He said he didn’t know any of his neighbors. When asked about the services he was receiving he said there were none. When we asked him how long he spent inside every day he replied, “As little time as possible,” while chugging a beer. Indeed, within two weeks of our visit he was once again out on the street, melting down as usual, albeit a couple of blocks away. In the ensuing weeks I would hear him from time to time and see him wandering the streets in different parts of Santa Monica. After his initial bout of enthusiasm he seemed quickly to revert to his old ways. I cannot verify it factually but it seems all but certain he never received any of the promised services.

Then, one day in early March 2020, when the world was hearing the first rumblings about this virus called SARS-CoV-2, a headline from the Santa Monica Daily Press appeared on my news feed entitled “Crime Watch: A misfit.” Out of idle curiosity I clicked on it, and there was Bryan’s mugshot. He’d been arrested in February for assaulting a woman in broad daylight, hitting her in the back with his fist and then “standing behind her ranting and yelling erratically.” He was arrested for assault and — wait for it — public intoxication.

An apartment did not save Bryan Dibucci. It did not prevent his next meltdown or his next violent assault. If there was one service that someone like Bryan should have received it was alcohol counseling. But no, billions of dollars and thousands of employees at hundreds of nonprofits can’t even muster that. L.A. is a city in which celebrities who are threats to no one but their publicity teams detox in Malibu luxury while homeless people who are an immediate threat to themselves and the communities in which they reside don’t get so much as an AA meeting every day or two. It’s unconscionable.

An unconscionable system

There is no other word for it. Bryan hasn’t been around the neighborhood in a long time. It’s possible he’s in jail. It’s possible he made his way back home to Michigan. It’s possible he’s committed worse offenses. It’s possible he’s dead. It’s possible we will never know. What’s beyond dispute is that the cities of Los Angeles and Santa Monica, the County of L.A., LAHSA, and an entire ecosystem of handsomely-funded nonprofits had 25 years — a quarter of a century — to help Bryan Dibucci. And they failed, just as they have failed countless, probably hundreds of thousands, of others.

Remember Bryan the next time a politician expounds on the benefits of staggeringly expensive permanent supportive housing. Keep his rap sheet, and the people he victimized over the years, in mind when someone like former Councilman Mike Bonin asserts there’s “no connection” between homelessness and crime. Keep him in mind and in your prayers. For Los Angeles has become a metropolis of Bryans, all of them running from their own personal demons like Robin Williams’s tragic Parry in The Fisher King. Above all, keep your sense of empathy no matter what he may do. Even if he does the worst.

Because if you lose that, you lose yourself. And that’s how the bad guys win.

[Update: I ran into Bryan on Saturday, June 3, 2023. I was driving east on Wilshire Boulevard and saw him walking past Dagwood’s Pizza. I pulled over, rolled down my window, and called out to him. He recognized me and smiled broadly. “Hey, Chris! How are you, man?” He told me that ever since losing his apartment he’d been living in an alley a few blocks away (for his safety I won’t divulge the location). I asked if he’d tried getting another permanent place and he said no. He said, “I’m better on the street. That place [Step Up] was bad, man. I feel better out here.”

I have attempted to contact him via text several times since, without success.]