By Weldon Berger
I’m writing to applaud Michael Bancas for his letter on Santa Monica’s homeless problem (July 9, page 4, “Letters to the editor”). Being homeless myself, and in full accord with the notion that homelessness should be confined to communities less prosperous and attractive than Santa Monica, I feel duty-bound to offer my expertise. While Bancas’s idea of an escalating program of harassment culminating in jail time for mentally ill homeless people — his “smelly guy... talking to an invisible person" — may sound like good fun, in practice it’s not very effective. Homeless people, like stray kittens, generally return to the last place we got a good meal. Starving us might work, but the European tourists Bancas says are horrified by live homeless people might be almost as horrified by the sight of our emaciated corpses, so that’s not really practical either.
What we need instead is a catch-and-release program for humans. Let’s get some man-sized humane traps, bait them with gourmet take-out meals or sleeping bags — that’s my expertise coming into play — and then release the trapped homeless people into environs from which they can’t make their ways back to Santa Monica. I’d suggest gang neighborhoods, Baghdad or Death Valley, but any place with predatory bipeds or fatal extremes of climate would do.
Bancas complains about the endless and costly studies of the problem, and I’m with him on that score too. The last study I read was entitled, “Ending Homelessness in Santa Monica.” I’m willing, indeed eager, to work with Bancas on an actual program. We could call it “Ending the Homeless in Santa Monica," or perhaps “The Final Solution.”
European tourists would love that.
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on July 10, 2008. Read the original PDF.