By Ted Winterer Santa Monica
Kevin Ueda’s article on prospective City Council candidates (SMDP, July 28, page 1) stated that I believe “City Hall’s current programs seem to be effective regarding homelessness.” That’s not quite the case.
Homelessness remains residents’ No. 1 concern year in and year out and I experience it daily in my Ocean Park neighborhood, where I can rarely walk down Main Street without being aggressively panhandled every block or so. And explaining to my 4-year-old daughter about homelessness and teaching her to be cautious and street smart during encounters with transients has been a gut-wrenching challenge I’d have been happy to do without.
What I recollect saying to Mr. Ueda was that I was encouraged by the efforts of council members Bobby Shriver and Richard Bloom and others in our community to push new regional and local initiatives to deal with homelessness, but that these efforts would require some time before generating results. Whereas previously Santa Monica relied on a tired and ineffective “continuum of care” to cope with homelessness, new endeavors such as hiring a homeless czar, instituting a homeless court and auditing the efficacy of social services providers are part of a necessary attempt to experiment with new and promising methods for coping with an issue which impacts all of us.
That does mean there is not more to be done. We must work harder to eliminate the anti-social behavior of some homeless individuals. To that end, we must find new ways, within the limits of our basic civil liberties to curtail threatening and obnoxious behavior. And in hiring a new chief of police, we must seek an individual who offers a bold approach to addressing our two most intractable public safety concerns: Homelessness and gang violence. Finally, we have to get those who would like to change their lives off the streets and into supportive housing, whether at the VA facility or other locations in LA County.
Thank you for the opportunity to clarify my stance on this vital issue.
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on August 2, 2006. Read the original PDF.