By Mathew L. Millen Santa Monica
In a recent opinion piece (SMDP, Dec. 30, page 4), David Sirkin, M.D., writes that Santa Monica doesn’t do enough for the homeless. Let’s set the record straight. The people living on the streets of Santa Monica are not there because they are Santa Monica residents who lost their homes to foreclosure, or are Santa Monica tenants who were evicted. They came here from someplace else because of the services and programs we already fund.
Dr. Sirkin is in error when he says there “is no cold weather shelter in Santa Monica.” There is. SAMOSHEL is a year-round transient shelter on Olympic Boulevard with over 100 beds currently operated by Ocean Park Community Center and funded by the city of Santa Monica. Therefore, “the large emergency shelter near downtown” he says the city needs does exist near downtown.
There are nearly 500 shelter beds in a number of locations within the city provided by some of the numerous homeless service nonprofits the city annually subsidizes.
Dr. Sirkin suggested the city have an ordinance to restrict camping on city (public) property. Such an ordinance does exist and has since 1994.
Dr. Sirkin writes, “With an emergency shelter in operation, we could enforce laws and ordinances against spending the night in the park or on the sidewalk.” SAMOSHEL was built and financed so that city politicians could feel politically correct in passing an anti-camping public park/sidewalk/property ordinance at the time. Enforcing the law, however, should not be contingent on whether or not social services are available in Santa Monica.
Dr. Sirkin writes, “A special detail of police is needed to enforce these ordinances and direct persons... to community centers.” Had he done his homework, psychiatrist Sirkin would know that the Santa Monica Police Department has a special detail: the Homeless Liaison Program or HLP team. According to city documents, over 2,600 “homeless” contacts were made by the HLP team last year alone.
The HLP team is four dedicated, sworn police officers — soon to be more with budget approved for fiscal year 2005/2006 for a total of six HLP officers. Their function is to deal with “homeless,” vagrants and transients, to enforce laws such as alcohol and illegal camping ordinances and to direct persons to help, including a wide variety of programs and services, outreach, sheltering, counseling, mental and medical referrals, housing and job training — to name a few.
Dr. Sirkin feels that Santa Monica’s answer to the homeless problem would be to build shelters to handle about 1,700 beds and center services in these shelters. He suggests police should become concierges to direct and “transport” transients to these shelters, especially at night. He also expects hospitals to provide housing for their mentally ill homeless patients upon their discharge.
Dr. Sirkin doesn’t seem to understand any of the dynamics despite that he is “working part-time in community mental health centers, one of them in Santa Monica.” He seems to ignore the fact that many of our homeless, who have mental issues and substance abuse problems, do not want services. Many avoid shelters and programs that could provide assistance because they do not want to be “tied down” by case workers or even simple requirements such as keeping an appointment even if it means giving up months of housing where there is safety, a bed, showers, meals and counseling.
While Dr. Sirkin does recognize that shelters and services could be a magnet for drawing more indigents and mentally ill to our community, he offers no solution as to how to prevent that from happening — except that the taxpayers of Santa Monica should provide more beds and more services. I commend Bobby Shriver for suggesting the homeless czar idea and think Mr. Edelman is a terrific choice. Now instead of more shelter beds and HUD grant money flowing into Santa Monica, Mr. Edelman has to help Manhattan Beach, El Segundo, Hermosa Beach, Torrance, Redondo Beach and other coastal communities secure funds and offer beds or services. If those cities build shelters and provide services, the homeless will go there, thus reducing the number on our streets.
Santa Monica has spent hundreds of millions of dollars on services for transients over the last two decades, and we have still, for a city of our size, one of the largest populations of street people of any beach or suburban community in the state. So, obviously the city’s well-thought-out “continuum of care” doesn’t work, is not solving problems and is not getting homeless off the streets and back into productive society in meaningful numbers.
What about cost? The programs that Dr. Sirkin would like to see in place would cost tens of millions of dollars annually. Maybe he wouldn’t mind paying thousands of dollars a year in extra taxes for these services, however, the vast majority of Santa Monicans, and particularly the low-income tenants, cannot afford and do not feel that we should pay for services that primarily benefit people who are not residents, have no ties to the community and moved here for the free services.
But Dr. Sirkin could do something. He could build a second unit on his property and rent it to one of the former homeless who are moving from a Santa Monica shelter to permanent housing. I will be looking for his letter to the editor announcing he has filed plans with the building department.
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on January 9, 2006. Read the original PDF.