By INCITES BY ED SILVERSTEIN
Overwhelmed police and social services are no longer able to identify and provide real care for those in temporary economic need, fleeing abusive relationships, the mentally ill and substance abusers seeking a cure. The homeless population must be reduced to a manageable level — less than half the current level — and the criminal element eliminated. And other solutions should be found to deal with the chronic homeless who suck up resources, but are beyond, or do not desire, help.
Such a reduction will require draconian measures, societal triage and visionary leaders. The streets must become less welcoming, less tolerant of anti-social behavior. Social services need to be accountable. If they refuse to track the success of their programs or provide information on who is using their services, stop funding them.
It is ludicrous to spend millions building a shelter with 50 beds on some of the most expensive real estate in the world, when we could band together with other local communities to build hundreds of units of permanent single room occupancy housing in less desirable outlying areas. Or, as incoming City Councilman Bobby Shriver has suggested, use the vacant VA buildings for shelters and feedings.
Nuisance crimes, public intoxication, public urination or defecation, and disorderly conduct such as yelling obscenities around children, should be prosecuted. Even the mentally ill are capable of restraint if boundaries are well defined and maintained. And put an end to the policy of allowing an unproven claim of a medical condition to act as a get out of jail free card. Increased liability will be offset by a reduction in arrests and prosecutions of these chronic offenders.
Santa Monica should toughen and aggressively enforce our existing laws concerning sleeping in doorways. And large outdoor feedings should be ended unless they are attached to services.
Work programs should be required for receiving state or local financial aid. Let the homeless clean up litter and graffiti. Or consider leasing acreage and teaching them farming. The crops could be sold at our local farmers’ markets and the profits used to fund other programs.
Solutions will require out of-the-box thinking. To stop transients from setting up camp in our parks, erect fences and close the parks at night. If lawsuits paralyze the city’s efforts to regulate public spaces, then lease public places, such as the Promenade, to private groups. If our laws are repeatedly challenged in court, then use poison pill strategies such as taking all legal costs associated with defending these laws directly from the social services budget.
If these measures seem harsh, if it seems that people in Santa Monica have lost their compassion, it is because we have been relentlessly assaulted by far more than our fair share of this crushing blight. If we are to regain our humanity, our desire to help these often pitiful and desperate souls, then it is up to the City Council to … (Send comments or requests for copies of this column to)
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on November 10, 2004. Read the original PDF.