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# Julia Reeves Santa Monica How about a homeless/historic tour?
- URL: https://www.smdp.com/julia-reeves-santa-monica-how-about-a-homeless-historic-tour-editor/
- Published: 2003-02-25T16:00:00.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-23T01:39:14.000Z
- Author: Guest Author
- Tags: Opinion, Santa Monica, #archive-import, Homeless

*By Tom Fuller Santa Monica*

I’m still laughing about Joanne Gamlin’s letter, “Don’t give the developers any more fuel,” where she says, “Tourists like to see a few homes of historic significance” and that “a no vote on Prop. A will energize the city’s tourism industry creating a boom that eventually will help everyone.”

Sweet thought. However, I think that the real problem with the city’s tourist industry (and yes, it is the engine that drives the Santa Monica economy) is all the homeless people.

I have a theory that our “gonna change-the-world” city council actually wants tourists to see and “interact” with (most of us call it be annoyed by or intimidated by) the homeless as a way of educating society on the plight of the homeless (kind of an updated version of the Chinese or Cambodian re-education plan).

So, based on this theory, I have a great idea. We make a combo Historic Home- Homeless tour. It’s a great idea... see, we put homeless encampments on the lawns of historically significant homes. Then we entice our tourists to go on a tour of our historic homes. When our happy little tourists look disappointed as the bus pulls up to its first stop, we start the lecture...

*Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on February 25, 2003.* [Read the original PDF.](https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/smdp%5Fbackissues/022503.pdf?ref=smdp.com)