By John Medlin Santa Monica Where’s the compassion? Editor:
“We must stop making it easy for the homeless to live on our streets. We must be helpful and sympathetic without forsaking our residents safety and security.”
In Jenna Linnekens’ column (SMDP, July 6, page 5) 6 July 2006, “No more easy streets,” she made the above statement. It addresses the crux of the matter — how to balance residents’ safety and security with being “helpful and sympathetic” to the homeless.
I have lived in Santa Monica since 1996 and before written letters to the editor, attended various workshops on the homeless situation in Santa Monica and called the police department more than 20 times for problems with homeless in the alley behind my residence and on adjoining streets — urinating, defecating, fighting, disturbing the peace, threatening, etc. In the last decade, I have seen a budget of $2 million per year directly allocated to the homeless. Each year, an estimated 25 percent of the budget of the police department and 10 percent of the fire department budget are directly used for dealing with homeless misbehavior and treatment. With the combined police and fire departments’ budget annually at $60 million and $20 million, respectively, that means an additional $17 million is used for the homeless each year. Thus, over the last decade as much as $200 million has been paid by the government of Santa Monica through revenues from its citizens and visitors to deal with the city’s homeless population — 2 percent and growing. And now we have a “homeless czar” paid $200,000-plus per year to coordinate the problems of the homeless on a regional basis. Please.
For me,it seems more important for the City Council and the citizens/voters of Santa Monica to decide to either encourage or discourage the homeless from locating in Santa Monica.
The consequences of that simple, not easy decision are immense. It’s time for our City Council to make up its mind, openly, clearly and officially. Decide and be willing to accept the consequences. We don’t need any new laws. There are adequate ones on the books already, if they were only enforced on a consistent and continuing basis. No more enabling. Start empowering and enforcing accountability for all involved. Enough is enough.
The official position of the city of Santa Monica to the homeless of the world is — encourage or discourage? Welcome, or stay out? What’s it to be?
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on July 13, 2006. Read the original PDF.