American Notes LOS ANGELES

During the Great Depression, the newly homeless squatted outside American cities in shantytowns derisively christened Hoovervilles. Last week Los Angeles opened a spruced-up, officially sanctioned version of the same thing, called an "urban campground," on a dusty, windswept lot between the Los Angeles River and the city's skid row. From a distance, the rows of yellow- and-white canopies look as if they might have been set up for a garden party. But inside are only Army-green cots with portable toilets placed nearby. Guards from the Salvation Army, which worked with Mayor Tom Bradley to establish the settlement, frisked the 350 new residents for weapons, liquor or drugs.

Bradley was under pressure to offer an alternative to the homeless after he ordered police to clear them from the sidewalks. But critics promptly termed the tent settlement a concentration camp. At best, it provides only a temporary respite for its residents. In two months the lot will be cleared for construction of a rail yard, and no one has figured out what to do with the homeless then. Undoubtedly many will drift back to the streets.