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# City stinks and so does City Hall’s response
- URL: https://www.smdp.com/city-stinks-and-so-does-city-halls-response-editor/
- Published: 2004-10-05T15:00:00.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-23T05:15:23.000Z
- Author: Guest Author
- Tags: Opinion, Santa Monica, #archive-import, Homeless

*By Matt Schabe Santa Monica*

(This letter was originally addressed to the Santa Monica City Council). I just wanted to again complain about the continued filth within our city of Santa Monica and bring to your attention yet another sickening incident my family and I experienced.

Last Thursday night, Sept. 30, my wife, 3-year-old, and myself drove to the Toys- R-Us at Fourth Street and Santa Monica Boulevard to pick up a piece of furniture that we had ordered. After paying for our merchandise, we were instructed that it could be loaded into our car in the rear alley behind the store. My wife and son left the store to pick up our car that was parked at a meter two blocks away while I stayed with our merchandise in the alley.

Immediately upon entering the alley, I observed a makeshift cardboard shelter on the ground at the back of the business with an overwhelming smell of urine and fecal matter surrounding the area. As I looked down at the ground behind a parked car where I was standing, I located what I thought was the source of the smell. It was a deep hole that was now a pool, 25 inches in diameter filled with remnants of what you might expect to find in a toilet. In addition was an empty food can and what appeared to be two empty pint-sized bottles of vodka floating on top.

Being overwhelmed at the sight as well as the smell, I picked up my merchandise and walked south through the alley. Twenty yards from where I started was yet another human waste site with a horrendous odor. I continued walking south through the alley all the while smelling urine. I stopped in the alley behind Michaels hoping my ride would soon arrive and waited. Sensing the same type of smells, I looked to see yet another cardboard shelter against the business wall with a nearby puddle of vomit in addition to miscellaneous clothing and “Old English” beer cans scattered about the ground. The smells as well as the hazardous materials my family and I have been exposed to in this city are outrageous as compared to our surrounding cities where they rarely exist on this scale.

Let it be known that I have notified the city on several occasions regarding problems of the same nature over the last several years — only to be told that city crews were on scene and cleaning the site. I was once actually told by a city official that the smell of urine I reported was actually blooms on a tree? I’m well aware of what the smell of urine is like, I live in Santa Monica.

Cleaning crews and orange-scented disinfectants are not the answer to the problems regarding the homeless of this city. Time after time, complaint after complaint, the city has failed to take action and do their best to help eliminate the problems other than disinfectants. I will tell you firsthand that the problem exists because throughout the western states, Santa Monica has become known as “the place to be for free.”

These are complaints from a citizen who lives in this city. Please listen, look and act. This citizen would simply like to see more of the homeless programs closed to eliminate the nationwide attraction, and the money diverted to the school system in the city. My family and I have not shopped or used restaurants in the Santa Monica area for the last several years due to the filth and escalating aggressive panhandling everywhere we go and look. It’s simply intolerable.

One example, the simple act of going to Fromin’s on Wilshire Boulevard with the family for dinner and Rite Aid afterwards for an ice cream has become an unnecessary danger. Constantly throughout the day and night, there are always homeless loitering in the area arguing with you in front of your family as to why you aren’t giving them money, usually followed by an insult or challenge to fight. The daily drinking in public, and urinating on the surrounding property are constant. Although the local police have been notified each time, the problem continues to thrive.

Thank you for your attention to my complaint. And please make appropriate notification to the division within the city which responds, once again, to our homeless waste sites for cleaning.

*Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on October 5, 2004.* [Read the original PDF.](https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/smdp%5Fbackissues/100504.pdf?ref=smdp.com)