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# A house divided: RAND site stirs it up
- URL: https://www.smdp.com/a-house-divided-rand-site-stirs-it-up/
- Published: 2004-12-18T16:00:00.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-23T05:49:01.000Z
- Author: Guest Author
- Tags: Community, Downtown, #archive-import, Homeless

This past week, Q-line asked: Should the vacant RAND building be converted into a homeless shelter, or torn down to make room for a park?

Here are your responses: ✆ “The RAND building should not be converted into a homeless shelter. The best idea that has been put forward for the homeless and their condition is the one proposed by Mr. Shriver, where the drunks and the addicts would be temporarily housed in the old jail building, and that the vacant building on the west side, the Veteran’s Association property, be made available for the homeless, and the drunks and the addicts. This is, by far, the best suggestion. If you use the RAND building, which is right in the heart of our economic contributers’ base, I think it will exacerbate the problem, rather than assist it.” ✆ “I think it’s a great idea, particularly since the idea floated by Shriver in West LA is apparently D.O.A.” ✆ “I think it’s an excellent idea for that vacant RAND building to be turned over to some of the homeless services.” ✆ “In a way, the use of the RAND Corporation vacant building for the homeless and associated projects would be a good idea, however the fear is that they will be here forever. The object and hope is to get them out of Santa Monica altogether. We have been plagued by these vagrants, crazies, drunks, muggers and downright criminals long enough.” ✆“I think you should make the RAND building into a homeless shelter. That would prevent people from stepping over homeless, people laying and sleeping on the sidewalks. To make a park would be another problem. Then you’ll have all the Santa Monica residents complaining about people sleeping in the parks. Instead of adding another problem to a problem already there, give these homeless people someplace to sleep.” ✆ “I do feel the RAND building should be turned into a homeless shelter. We should have a place for the homeless to go to, one specific facility. The park is gonna be more of the same if they decide to build it. It would be a homeless park. No one residential would be able to walk through the park. Transportation should be supplied by Big Blue Bus. Things could come together. Santa Monica has plenty of revenue to make this a happening thing. They have tourists coming in every day. Get the homeless off the street in a facility where they can be taken care of.” ✆ “Santa Monica is a very beautiful town, and it has all kinds of great shops, great housing, and yet when you walk past the Third Street Promenade, it’s sad to see the homeless outside, sleeping in sleeping bags outside of Armani. To not treat those individuals as human beings is incredible and reprehensible. You never know when you could be homeless. You never know when tragedy could strike you. It is so incredibly easy to become homeless. You could be totally healthy one day, and mentally ill the next. That could be you in that sleeping bag.” ✆ “If they use the RAND building, it will just be a few years before they trash it and we’ll have to tear the building down anyway. We might as well get a few years out of it, before we tear it down.” ✆ “The RAND center should not be used as a homeless shelter. It will just transfer more homeless downtown. It’s the wrong place to do it. Shriver mentioned West LA. The idea is to funnel them out of Santa Monica.” ✆ “No, it is not a good idea. The welcome signs for Santa Monica really have to come down. There’s been a big, fat, bring- ’em-all welcome sign here for 20 years, and it’s time the sign be pulled down.” ✆ “I think it’s a horrible idea to have all the homeless congregating in the old RAND building. All we need is to have them in Mid-town Santa Monica, where all the tourists are. It’s bad enough down there already, but to have them all there in one place sounds horrendous.” ✆“I think it’s a great idea. First of all, it will save tearing it down. It’s a wonderful structure and it’s big. I think there’s too much destruction of buildings already, those with use still left in them throughout the city. I hope that they do it.” ✆ “No, I do not think it’s a good idea. The whole point that residents have been trying to make, is that we want them out of here, not smack downtown. A much better idea would be to reactivate old remote — and that’s the key word — military bases, and set up all these wonderful programs out there, where these people would be stuck there until they are trained. Bases have facilities for training and for working. That’s my solution.” ✆ “This is the dumbest idea I have heard in a long time. You have to look at the people who have been responsible for the leadership in this town for the past few years, that have given us rent control, historic preservation, low-income housing and the pseudo-bum problem. These people are New York-progressive liberals. There is no bum problem in Santa Monica. The money should go to the Salvation Army and aid the rescue mission in downtown LA. Bums will go where the money and food are. Let’s get rid of these socialist do-gooders and get some real leadership.”

*Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on December 18, 2004.* [Read the original PDF.](https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/smdp%5Fbackissues/121804.pdf?ref=smdp.com)