By David E. Gonzales Santa Monica
Kevin McCrae certainly is wrong to blame Ronald Reagan for creating the homeless problem in Santa Monica, just as he and his homeless brethren are wrong for failing to take personal responsibility for the alcohol and substance abuse, and criminal element, found among the city’s homeless population. But that’s the typical liberal response — blame Reagan but take no personal responsibility.
It seems it was the Supreme Court during the Reagan governorship that ruled the government could not hold people — namely the alcoholic, substance abusing, criminal homeless — against their will unless they were a danger to themselves or others. I’m sure Mr. McCrae and his homeless brethren, along with the liberal do-gooders who enable the homeless in Santa Monica, would prefer seeing the homeless confined in hell holes like the Camarillo mental facility, drugged, restrained and locked in a cage.
Instead, our City Council and government enables the homeless to sleep and urinate in public, and, in general, make a nuisance in Santa Monica. If Mr. McCrae or any of his homeless brethren are having trouble finding a meal or services to help them out of their “abyss,” as Mr. McCrae describes it, then they have to look no further than to the numerous agencies funded by the city that provide services to the homeless, or those who feed the homeless in the city.
Stop whining and take some personal responsibility, Mr. McCrae.
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on July 7, 2004. Read the original PDF.