By Thom Trybus Los Angeles
Since you have openly invited anyone who reads your paper to “create some dialog” in response to the opinion “As I see it” by Bill Bauer, I decided to accept the invitation and write to you.
Whether you print this or not remains to be seen, but if you really want to hear another bunch of opposing series of thoughts from someone on the so-called "homeless crisis,” then here they are. To begin with, any citizen of this country, regardless of his or her manner of dress, financial station in life or other rudimentary circumstances or qualifiers has both the right to be here as anyone else, and the freedom (as opposed to others without citizenship who do not) to speak as they wish. See the First Amendment to the United States Constitution.
Santa Monica ought to consider itself blessed with the modest population it has of rather tame (in comparison to other areas) homeless people. They are a manageable lot whom consist of mainly unemployed artists, performers and those "fellow Americans down on their luck," as Humphrey Bogart would put it.
They are, so far as anyone knows, easier to live with than some those one might find a mere 10-15 miles further inland, in say Watts, which they happily burned to the ground a mere 10 years or so ago — for the second time, mind you. Or, as openly unmanageable by any of your city, state or federal laws than the enormous dense “out of control" population of illegal aliens from Mexico and other countries in South America whom choose to invade ours, and choose to settle en masse here in the greater L.A. are in the comfort of what were once beautiful communities they overpopulated, and trashed into the “barrios” they can so easily hide in and operate out of. Ask any “coyote” you happen to know.
Bauer said in the second installment of his two-part series (the only part I read or needed to) that he believes in the old axiom “if you provide it, they will come.” Not really much of an old axiom, but evidence of his mental struggle with himself and the condition we now call homelessness.
Homelessness is directly caused by the impact on a segment of the population by illegal aliens criminally jumping our national and state borders, taking away our desperately needed jobs, affordable housing and severely impacting our available medical and social services, as well as extensively overburdening our school systems. These factors and much more, had you the space to print them all, directly contribute to the increase of legal citizens of this great nation becoming an internal community of what we used to call “D.P.s.” (displaced persons) following W.W.II. Now we are called “homeless.”
We are your brothers and sisters out here. We deserve better recognition and treatment. When you turn your back on your own fellow citizens in favor of assisting/supporting any illegal alien no matter how little, you are acting in an un-American manner. If you overcome your petty problems with the tame homeless in your midsts, you would be better off for it.
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on August 26, 2002. Read the original PDF.