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# Hooked on the homeless
- URL: https://www.smdp.com/hooked-on-the-homeless-editor/
- Published: 2002-11-23T16:00:00.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-23T00:59:22.000Z
- Author: Guest Author
- Tags: Opinion, Santa Monica, #archive-import, Homeless, Homelessness

*By Leonard M. Kuras*

Twelve years ago as CEO of the “Coalition of Santa Monica Homeless”... the only homeless organization run by homeless individuals and recognized and supported by the city of Santa Monica I suggested that if the city did not come to an honest and intelligent assessment of its homeless situation and act accordingly it would only get worse.

For 12 years Santa Monica has been “swimming in the same cesspool”... burying its head in the same sand and throwing good money after bad to the provider agencies.

Twelve years ago I told you the homeless are not the problem... the poor... lost and raggard population that crowd the streets of “Strange Monica” are the results of the problem and so long as you treat the victims as the problem you will never solve the problem. The real problem is greed, short-sighted, ego-centric, self-serving greed.

Consider the following. This year Santa Monica budgeted $1.8 million to support 22 homeless programs. One does not have to hold a Ph.D. to look at those numbers and know Santa Monica has a homeless population because Santa Monica wants and encourages a homeless population.

The first business of any business is to stay in business. Expecting the provider organizations to end homelessness is like asking your butcher to advocate a vegetarian diet — it is not in his interest.

The truth is more people “live” off the poor and homeless in “Schizoid Monica” than any other city of its size in the country. Like it or not Santa Monica is the “poverty pimp” capital of the country.

The real “beggars” in Santa Monica are not the nickel and dime panhandlers on the Promenade. The real “beggars” are the $50,000 a year upper middle class social workers who “sweat out” funding applications plan fund raisers and “beg” for contributions.

Ninety five percent of all the money given to provider agencies is consumed by salaries and expenses. Not 5 percent of the $1.8 million the city will dole out this year will get close enough to the homeless for them to smell, let alone put in their pockets.

The lucky ones will get a couple of bus tokens, a baloney sandwich and your ex-husband’s old shirt.

A decade ago in a conversation with Julie Rusk, Santa Monica’s human services manager, Ms. Rusk stated no one in Santa Monica was “living” off the homeless. As much as I like you personally Julie and I do, you were wrong 12 years ago and you’re wrong today and if you keep your job another 12 years you will be wrong then.

Homelessness is to Santa Monica what drugs, booze and sex are to Hollywood. What gamblers are to Las Vegas and what “junk food” is to a “coke freak.” In other words Santa Monica is “hooked” on homelessness.

*Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on November 23, 2002.* [Read the original PDF.](https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/smdp%5Fbackissues/112302.pdf?ref=smdp.com)