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# CURB APPEAL: Tackle homelessness in budget
- URL: https://www.smdp.com/curb-appeal-tackle-homelessness-in-budget/
- Published: 2006-04-22T15:00:00.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-23T17:39:07.000Z
- Author: Guest Author
- Tags: Community, Ocean Park, #archive-import, Homeless, Homelessness

This past week, Q-line asked: “What special items do you think should be included in the city’s budget for the upcoming year?”

Here are your responses: ✆ “I believe that one important item that should be included in the city budget is a beer keg item. With a beer keg item in the budget, Councilman Bobby Shriver and homeless Caesar Ed Edelman, who is receiving a bundle of cash to solve Santa Monica’s homeless situation, could hold a beer keg party once a week on the front lawn of City Hall and invite the homeless. This would give Bobby and Ed a wonderful opportunity to meet Santa Monica’s homeless population and shake their hands and establish a first-name relationship.Here’s how it would work.First,plastic beer mugs would be handed out, and then the homeless would line up in front of Bobby and Ed’s kegs. As the homeless walk up to Bobby’s keg, Bobby would say, ‘Hi, I’m President John F. Kennedy’s nephew.”’ The homeless would say,“Great, pal, how about a little less foam in the mug, please.” As they walk up to Ed’s keg, Ed would say,“Hi, I’m the new homeless Caesar,and I’m making a bundle solving your problems.” The homeless would say,“What problems? A little less foam in the mug, please.’ Also, Bobby and Ed could hire a string quartet to sing ‘Bobby and Ed are Jolly Good Fellows.’ The homeless would respond in chorus, ‘We’ll drink to that.’” ✆ “What the city could do is spend the money on a new jail and more cops to have a place to put the bums they don’t bother arresting because they have no place to put them.” ✆ “The primary thing this city administration needs to budget for is removing all the filthy, dangerous, alcoholic, drug-addicted crazies from this city before we have no city left at all for the residents. We are sick of being threatened, frightened and intimidated by these creatures. The city has to wake up, really wake up and stop enabling this spreading fungus of vagrancy.” ✆ “I think that a wonderful thing the city should do is make the streets better, because I happen to be, at this juncture, a disabled person, so now I can see what the streets are like in a wheelchair, so the city of Santa Monica should do that most certainly.” ✆ “We have a city rich in what is useless and unnecessary and very poor in what is essential. A top budget priority should be the repairing and repaving of our very old crumbling, neglected alleys, with their potholes big enough to break an axle, or an ankle. I was once told by the city’s engineering department ‘re-surfacing alleys is not our policies, unless you’re interested in an assessment.’ In other words, this is a duty the city refuses to perform, and the main reason is that repaving alleys would do nothing to create new tax revenues, which is really all they care about.” ✆ “There are 2,000 homeless in Santa Monica and maybe one which maybe grew up here. Let’s take the millions we spend on homeless and housing for poor criminals and make TV and radio ads to be shown in other states like New York and Texas which show the down and out in Beverly Hills and Santa Monica are sick, dying, nuts, beaten, robbed, raped and thrown in jail. This may keep some of them back in their own home-towns.” ✆ “Get the free-loading cruds out of the city. Then we will have lots of money for the window dressing items.” ✆ “First, I would like to see the city address the beautification of Ocean Park Boulevard from Lincoln Boulevard all the way to the beach. On that stretch of Ocean Park Boulevard there is so much cement, it feels like a freeway. I’d like to see a planted median and widened sidewalks. There should also be more places for pedestrians to cross the street. Second, the city should budget for election expenses to allow us to vote on an exception on Prop. S for 415 PCH. In my opinion, we need to have food service there. Ideally, it would be on the second floor so we could see the ocean. This food facility would be open to the public until an hour after sunset. Wouldn’t it be great if we could be comfortable and have a beer or glass of wine and some food while looking at the sunset without paying big prices? Without food and drink, I would likely visit the revamped 415 PCH but not go back, except maybe for an event. Importantly, the city should also include money for Big Blue Bus service all along PCH with a stop at 415\. The No. 3 bus along

*Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on April 22, 2006.* [Read the original PDF.](https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/smdp%5Fbackissues/042206.pdf?ref=smdp.com)