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# More means more, not less, homeless
- URL: https://www.smdp.com/more-means-more-not-less-homeless/
- Published: 2007-05-21T15:00:00.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-25T00:04:30.000Z
- Author: Bill Bauer
- Tags: Opinion, Downtown, #archive-import, Homeless, Homelessness

SANTA MONICA HAS RAMPED UP spending on the homeless over the last couple of years by expanding City Hall’s homeless service staff, hiring a $200,000 per year “homeless Czar,” and creating programs to provide services and housing for chronically homeless and chronically homeless alcoholics to name just two.

Julie Rusk, manager of the city’s Human Services Department, told surfsantamonica.com (April 12) that the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority census conducted two years ago (January 2005, Greater Los Angeles Homeless Count), found that on an average day, 418 of Santa Monica’s 1,192 homeless live downtown.

Unfortunately, 1,192 is the number of persons actually counted in select census tracts. According to LAHSA, its only 60 percent of the city’s total homeless. Including “hidden” homeless and adjusting for uncounted tracts, LAHSA estimates there are 1,991 homeless individuals in Santa Monica. The more recent December, 2006, Urban Institute’s “Ending Homelessness in Santa Monica,” estimated 2,300 to 3,000 persons living on our streets, daily. Realistically, 800 or more transients could call downtown "home.”

Keeping those figures in mind, in March, approximately 20 outreach workers, homeless services providers and city staff participated in an “outreach” on the Third Street Promenade.

“Were reaching out to people who’ve been on the streets for as long as 20 years," Rusk told the press. “They talked to 16 people and each one was connected with a service provider."

Only 20 outreach workers made contact with 16 people? And, when Rusk says "contact” or “connected,” this could mean as little as handing someone a business card. And “persons in a program” could be someone signing into OPCC’s Access Center for a free sack lunch.

This much touted stroll down the Promenade may not have accomplished much, but it made great “feel good” publicity. Good press on its homeless efforts is a must for the city. The few success stories are touted to the local media to sell us on the effectiveness of the city’s extensive and expensive “continuum of care” and foster sympathy for the army of vagrants that occupy our community. As with Iraq war propaganda, showing progress helps deflect complaints and criticism Homeless services here are a big business employing hundreds. Failures and high costs are ignored and buried. Despite the surge in programs and budgets, City Hall’s attempts at getting the homeless off our streets is about as successful as the Bush administration’s efforts in containing the insurgency in Iraq.

Rusk regaled City Council late last month with the progress made since programs began expanding in July 2004\. She said the Chronic Homeless Program staff has helped 113 mentally ill or drug and/or alcohol addicted people. There have been 39 placed in permanent housing and 18 more are in assisted living or group home environments. The Feds put nearly $1,000,000 into this program and additional costs are being borne by the city, county and other entities.

CLARE Foundation’s Serial Inebriate Outreach Program (SIOP) offers alcohol recovery services to city jail inmates. CLARE’s made 400 contacts and connected 103 individuals with services. While this is a promising start, only eight have completed a program and 10 individuals are still involved she reported.

The monthly Homeless Community Court heard twenty-six cases in its first three months. Persons who agree to sobriety and enter programs have their cases and citations dismissed. Obtaining employment is the reason given for this privileged and expensive ($500,000 in L.A. County funding) exercise in “special treatment” justice. However, LAHSA’s 2005 census said only 10.8 percent of respondents interviewed indicated their criminal record prevented them from getting permanent housing and nothing was mentioned about it affecting employment.

Despite all we’ve done, homeless and transients on Santa Monica streets have almost tripled since 1999’s city census. There’s more coming every day because we’re a magnet for those looking for handouts and hand ups.

The bad news is that we’re only helping dozens of individuals turn their life around and it’s already costing millions of dollars. Even worse, while some progress is occurring, we’re slipping deeper and deeper into the abyss — and doing it alone.

While politicians and homeless advocates talk “regional solutions” and want others to get involved, we expand our service capability, suck up available financial grants and assume an even larger roll as the center of the homeless services industry and “home of the homeless."

*Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on May 21, 2007.* [Read the original PDF.](https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/smdp%5Fbackissues/052107.pdf?ref=smdp.com)