Once again, City Hall has rubber-stamped a plan for the homeless that is riddled with problems for the Santa Monica community.
The homeless issue was the topic-de-jour at Tuesday night’s public hearing and the City Council review of this year’s annual report on its homeless services.
The review is prepared annually for the City Council by City Hall’s Community and Cultural Service Department, which oversees the city’s vast array of homeless services. As expected, the report whitewashes the negatives and pats the city and service providers on the back for a job well done.
It says, “770 homeless-related complaints were recorded by the Santa Monica Police Department’s Homeless Liaison Program unit, and 100 complaints went to the City Manager and Homeless Services Department last year.”
Omitted were thousands of homeless-related complaints received at the Santa Monica Police Department switchboard.
It analyzed how $1,830,722 in direct city funding of social services, along with another $5,547,087 in non-city funding — a total of almost $7.4 million, went to 22 programs provided by 10 agencies for 2,773 homeless persons who requested help during the fiscal year. But the report neglected to say how many people were on the streets this past year and no longer qualify for services or refuse them.
While the annual review is rife with success stories, it doesn’t address the true cost of the city’s “everybody's welcome” policy. With a third of all police calls and about 18 percent of paramedic calls related to the homeless, the actual cost is well into the tens of millions of dollars annually.
It glosses over the loss of business because shoppers and visitors won’t come here anymore.
How about the cost of cleaning up after an estimated 1,400 vagrants and transients, many of whom use our streets and sidewalks as lavatories and dumps each day? Not there, either. “Transient” crime statistics? Heaven forbid.
The annual review gave high marks to two recent ordinances restricting sleeping in doorways downtown and requiring permits for feeding programs in public parks.
The former ordinance has seen some enforcement and many doorway squatters have resettled in other parts of the city. The much-ballyhooed feeding ordinance hasn’t been enforced.
Silliest of all was the claim that now only six groups hand out food regularly in the parks. How about the dozens or so that still feed irregularly?
Despite all this, City Council members say all is well. Their comments in the Oct. 28 edition of the Santa Monica Daily Press, as well as on the dais, indicate smug satisfaction with their general course of action.
Most comments mirrored statements uttered by 15-year City Councilman Ken Genser, on whose watch this problem has mushroomed out of control. They blame complaints on a few anti-social individuals and the unregulated public food handouts in city parks by outside organizations.
They moan that the city has been “severely limited by the courts” in restricting public feedings. Other communities don’t seem to have a problem restricting them in public spaces, but then they don’t have a 20-year history of them like we do.
Some council members blame the police. Kevin McKeown, Bob Holbrook and Genser say even more police resources and enforcement are needed, but come budget time, don’t expect a clarion call from them for additional funding for it. Mayor Richard Bloom and Councilwoman Pam O’Connor say that it’s a regional problem in need of a regional solution. However, Santa Monica has such a well-established and reputable “continuum of care” other municipalities don’t get involved, they just send them here.
When I suggested to the city-funded Ocean Park Community Center’s Executive Director John Maceri that he locate OPCC’s proposed new shelter and drop-in center in the Washington/Fairfax or Adams area of Los Angeles, where land and buildings are much cheaper than in Santa Monica, his response was, “We serve Santa Monica’s homeless.”
City Hall has decreed that the vagrants and the transients of the world are ours. The red carpet will continue to be rolled out for them in spite of the high cost and negative effect on our quality of life.
The City Council’s solution: More services, more obfuscation, more expense and, inevitably, more vagrants, and even more problems. This nonsensical policy has been going on for so long that it’s beginning to fuel speculation about secret deals, payoffs and kickbacks. As one neighbor told me, “If it doesn’t make sense, it must make dollars.” (Bill Bauer is a longtime Santa Monica resident and by choice, can’t be reached by phone or e-mail).
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on October 31, 2003. Read the original PDF.