By Charles Springer (Charles Springer is a free lance artist and writer and a resident of Santa Monica. He can be reached at Chaz_59@yahoo.com)
Addiction takes on many forms from alcohol, drugs, sex, or food, to money, power and greed, with the latter three addictions being the most destructive in our society today. They cause the insanity of doing the same things over and over again and expecting different results — only the insanity is not just affecting the persons who are addicted, but society as a whole.
For example, here in Santa Monica there are small groups of individuals who want to place blame on the homeless for everything from the bad economy to the 10,000 people who have left Santa Monica to the lack of retail and private renters wanting to rent space here.
They would rather deny responsibility for pressuring the City Council to lift rent control in 1999 and the insane raising of the rents than be held accountable for this. The funny thing about pointing a finger at somebody is the fact that there are always three fingers pointing back at those who try to blame the symptom rather than the cause of homelessness.
They have divided the community with this anti-homeless barrage and are trying to push one of the agencies out of Santa Monica completely. Ocean Park Community Center is a needed community organization that takes care of not only the homeless, but abused and mentally ill women, as well as the poor and needy who come there for food to supplement their fixed incomes. I wonder how many people from the Pico neighborhood use this organization?
This addiction to power and money at all levels of government and the private sector has caused the loss of too many social programs over the years. Many were a safety net to keep people off the streets and help them to transition back into jobs and housing, while others kept the worst of the mentally ill off the streets and helped addicts recover from drug and alcohol dependency.
The mantra of these types of addicts is, “Why should my tax dollars go to helping people who don’t want the help?” Well, to answer that question in simple terms all they have to do is look around them at the havoc their selfish, self-centered thinking has caused in the last few years. They should look at what the “profitability over people” thinking is doing to their own profitability as laid-off employees tend to not buy as much and when this happens stock prices tend to drop.
It has gotten to the point of a local bank employee calling for gang members to harass the homeless in a letter to this very paper. I would call that very unethical and unprofessional behavior, especially since he used his bank’s email account to send me letters.
So, why should tax dollars go to helping resolve the homeless situation?
Because we are all Americans and we are all human beings. I, as a homeless man, bleed red blood as well as the rich guy, or poor woman, or the mentally ill, or drug-and alcohol-addicted person — whether African American, Hispanic, Asian or Caucasian. We are all equal under the Constitution of The United States of America.
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on August 18, 2003. Read the original PDF.