By Mark Shepherd Santa Monica
Imagine the quality of life in our special city if officials treated the homeless with the same fundamentalist vigor as anyone who wants to build anything in Santa Monica.
The comparison is valid because city administration policies and actions regarding both reveal a hypocrisy that is deep and abiding, and ultimately destructive to our neighborhoods and daily living.
Consider: If you want to build here, you are forced to comply with a set of laws and design regulations that make it uniquely difficult, expensive and time consuming. Anybody who has dealt with city hall knows this. The guiding principal behind the anti-building policies is one we all agree with: Preserving our quality of life — though we may disagree with Taliban-esque ‘design standards’ and all the city ‘red tape.’ And yes, building does occur here, because architects and homeowners will abide by the law, no matter how strict, if they choose to build.
But why can’t these same city officials apply equal focus and passion to enforce laws such as trespassing? Defecating in public? Panhandling? Sleeping in parks, doorways and sidewalks? Illegal food giveaways? Public intoxication? Not to mention the way the city ignores the physically sick and mentally ill who need help.
If the homeless choose to flock to our city and live on the streets, then that freedom comes with the responsibility not to break the law. If some who wander our neighborhoods and sleep in our gutters are there not by choice but by misfortune or sickness, we should help them all we can.
Judging from election returns, letters to the editor and simple day-to-day experience here, Santa Monica residents are weary of the way the homeless are mistreated, ignored and allowed to break the law. A house-cleaning is in order — from the city manager down to the city attorney to the chief of police, if necessary. And council elections are only two years away.
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on December 21, 2004. Read the original PDF.