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# Maybe city workers don’t want to live here
- URL: https://www.smdp.com/maybe-city-workers-dont-want-to-live-here-editor/
- Published: 2003-08-15T15:00:00.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-23T02:45:39.000Z
- Author: Guest Author
- Tags: Opinion, Promenade, #archive-import, Homeless

*By Katherine Marie Anderson*

Your article about the majority of Santa Monica city employees not living in Santa Monica raises several interesting questions.

Because most city employees do not live here, is this why city staff brings forward and supports the multitude of homeless programs and services the city provides? And if they don’t live here, why should city employees be concerned with the fallout?

And your article didn’t provide any substantive information or analysis about the salaries paid to city employees. Are city employees, including its upper management, our firefighters and police being paid enough so they could to live here?

Or maybe they just don’t live here by choice. Perhaps given the option of living in Santa Monica — where I can’t take my two children to the public parks, the Promenade or even the grocery store without being hassled by the homeless or having to avoid stepping in their bodily waste — city employees choose to live elsewhere so that their lives are not impacted by the homeless attracted by the city’s many programs and services.

Is it possible city employees prefer clean, livable, sustainable places where they can safely walk the streets, visit parks and go shopping with their kids?

*Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on August 15, 2003.* [Read the original PDF.](https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/smdp%5Fbackissues/081503.pdf?ref=smdp.com)