This past week, Q-line asked: How well do you think Santa Monica treats its homeless population relative to other cities?
Here are your responses: ✆ “What were these people drinking anyway? Ninth meanest? Impossible, unless you go by the fact that maybe the nicest city would be putting them bums up in free hotel rooms with room service and show tickets and everything. Then maybe Santa Monica could be the ninth meanest. The reason that there are so many bums in Santa Monica is that they let them get away with everything. They can lounge around and stink up Third Street. They can stink up the alleys and the city doesn’t do a thing about it. That is why there are so many bums in Santa Monica.” ✆ “It might be interesting if you revisit your old editorial where you call for the city to make it as uncomfortable and difficult as possible for the homeless to live here. It gives you an idea of where you stand; and (Bill) Bauer, (Bobby) Shriver, these are the kind of guys that paint the curb in front of the house red so nobody will park there.” ✆ “Well, as an ex-captain of the homeless feeding program a number of years back, I think that Santa Monica does a wonderful job. Maybe too wonderful, because they all seem to come here, but I don’t have a problem with it because I think you need to be aware of how other people live. Of course, many of them take drugs like alcohol and cigarettes and booze. My father was an alcoholic so my heart goes out to many of those people because I am the daughter of an alcoholic, and I had an aunt also that was so I don’t excuse alcoholism. As a matter of fact, there was a time that I went to Culver City and one of my clients got up and walked out to where he could have a drink, so believe you me, I know a lot. I am the ex-president of the patients here in Good Shepherd.” ✆ “No good deed goes unpunished. What did you expect from these self-promoters? Southern California, in thanks to the incompetent bleeding hearts on our city council, is the homeless destination capital of America. Even if the bums were asked to obey city laws, it is the weather they are here for, better than freezing in New York. The Chinese have a saying: “All large problems were once small so take care of all problems before they become large.” Where was our leadership on this issue 20 years ago? Where is our leadership now, more worried about hedge heights? Any bum here more than a year needs a bus right back to their home state. We treat our bums too good. We require nothing of them. How about mandatory work. All homeless outreach services need a basis in faith, this is most important. Few of them many bottom feeders in this category provide that. What they do provide is nice salaries and non-responsibility for making a profit, in other words quasi government all the Westside cities should donate to a downtown L.A. shelter and bus all bums to that shelter. “ ✆ “Yes, we are so mean to the homeless that we can’t even go over to McDonalds in the morning on the Promenade and sit and have a cup of coffee because every bench and the brand new, beautiful benches are all taken with these people — the homeless people — and they have no respect for anyone or any thing and their language and yelling and screaming and Santa Monica puts up with it so that is how mean we are.
Where are these people from the National Coalition for the Homeless so we can find them and show them how mean we really are with receipts in hand, in the name of hospitality? Give us a break! There was a homeless person with a sign saying: “I vision a T-bone steak” on the Promenade. That is how hard up they are. That is how mean we are to the them.” ✆ “I think that Santa Monica is at the top of the list nationwide on treating the homeless. We spend hundreds and thousands of dollars, even up to $2 million a year, trying to help and feed and give medical treatment and food and all kinds of stuff to the homeless. I think that it is time that we look at the problem of the homeless in a capitalistic way. We have to get bids from people who are organizations that have solutions to help get the homeless off the street in Santa Monica. One of the ideas that I have heard is to purchase land in Palmdale and have a homeless recovery center there and every homeless person found on the streets in Santa Monica would be put on a bus and driven to this homeless center in Palmdale where we would pay the best bid, the organization that says that they will help to either rehabilitate them or get them into an assisted living situation, but I think Santa Monica has really extended itself, the citizens have extended themselves greatly to this problem and I think that it is time now to look at it in a little different way.” ✆ “Yes, with regards to how Santa Monica treats its homeless, I was curious about the homeless coalition. You made a note that City Hall was considering paying L.A. County Jail for bids for transients convicted of non-violent misdemeanors, and I assume by “transients” which you usually use interchangeable with “homeless,” we are going to pay for jail bids for homeless persons sleeping on the ground. Is that correct?” ✆ “The 5 percent of the homeless are treated excellent. The 95 percent which are bums, vagrants and transients on drugs and alcohol are treated extra excellent. They are using the help of the city that they do not appreciate. They don’t care about the people or the city of Santa Monica. They are full of hate, making nuisances of themselves. They are rude, arrogant and selfish.”
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on January 28, 2006. Read the original PDF.