By Randy Walburger
My letter is in response to the Carolyn Sackariason lead article on July 12, 2002. Carolyn do you and your boss at the Santa Monica Daily Press, which exists solely on paid advertisements of mostly local venders, actually believe the homeless should be booted from Santa Monica? Do you believe that by booting the homeless like so many other cities and police departments have done that you are doing a humane and good thing?
Just because there are homeless people in a minimum wage economy that can’t employ all of its labor force, and because there are people who have no visible means of income for any number of reasons, you would boot them out of this city? Poor people be gone, just like that! Move on, take a hike, go away, just like that!
Times are tough for businesses because a minimum wage economy lowers demand for goods and services that make businesses prosper. Times are tough because too many CEOs have tricked up their books and left Wall Street holding worthless stocks.
So the Santa Monica Daily Press blames the people on the bottom. Blames the people on the bottom for eating food in public. Blames the people on the bottom for being seen in public. Blames the people on the bottom for being on the bottom in public!
You should be ashamed.
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on July 19, 2002. Read the original PDF.