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# Bill Bauer: Letters on homelessness and the council's failed policies
- URL: https://www.smdp.com/my-write-20040702/
- Published: 2004-07-02T15:00:00.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-23T04:41:27.000Z
- Author: Bill Bauer
- Tags: Opinion, Santa Monica, #archive-import, Homeless, Homelessness

*By Saul Cohen Santa Monica*

Jean McNeil Wyner (SMDP, June 30, page 4) displays a whole lot of what I would call chutzpah in criticizing Barnes and Noble for closing its bathrooms because of constant problems with the homeless using the facilities and leaving them filthy. I know, I’ve been in their bathrooms in the past while shopping in the store.

It takes a lot of chutzpah for a paid public relations flack for UCLA-Santa Monica Hospital to criticize a business because it’s tired of having to clean up after the homeless, the same homeless that the city of Santa Monica and its bleeding heart politicians enable.

What is Ms. Wyner and her employer, UCLA-Santa Monica Hospital, doing to encourage and facilitate the homeless’ use of the hospital’s bathroom facilities? Are the hospital’s doors and bathroom facilities open for the homeless to use? Will we see the hospital post flyers around the city alterting the homeless that its bathroom facilities are available? I’m not going to hold my breath waiting for that to happen.

And why would Barnes and Noble want to join the Chamber of Commerce? What LETTERS, from page 6 is the chamber actually doing about the homeless problem? And I don’t mean giving the issue lip service. Well, your guess is as good as mine, since the chamber isn’t being run by business people who have day-to-day problems with the homeless, like Barnes and Noble. No, the chamber is being run by retired politicians and school teachers who don’t own businesses. And I have to wonder if the chamber has opened the bathroom facilities in its office to the homeless? Probably not.

If Ms. Wyner is in such need of restroom facilities while on the Promenade there are the numerous public bathrooms in the many public parking structures adjacent to the Promenade. Oh, wait, aren’t those facilities also frequented by the homeless and filthy as a result? I guess Ms. Wyner can always go to UCLA-Santa Monica Hospital if she needs a clean restroom.

*Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on July 2, 2004.* [Read the original PDF.](https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/smdp%5Fbackissues/070204.pdf?ref=smdp.com)