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# No political will at City Hall to change homeless policy
- URL: https://www.smdp.com/no-political-will-at-city-hall-to-change-homeless-policy/
- Published: 2002-08-02T15:00:00.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-23T00:35:07.000Z
- Author: Bill Bauer
- Tags: Opinion, Promenade, #archive-import, Homeless

The high number of vagrants and transients who have taken over the Third Street Promenade are probably the single largest reason for the rising chorus of complaints and a corresponding business decline in the area.

Add a general economic downturn since Sept. 11, the transit mall, construction, traffic, parking problems and just about everyone agrees that things are getting a lot worse. Local residents are turning away from the downtown area in ever increasing numbers, tourists are appalled at what they see and according to the regional press, “Santa Monica’s Third Street Promenade is last year’s place to be.”

With all the carping and complaining, you’d think the Bayside District Corp., which is supposed to oversee the economic vitality of the Third Street Promenade area, would take some strong, unflinching action to put things back on course. And, you’d think that members of our city council would be falling all over themselves to fix the problems, too. Nawww.

A great many of the Bayside’s problems arise from the approximately 40 weekly free food handouts in nearby Palisades Park. It’s the free feedings along with an extensive smorgasbord of social service programs aimed at the “homeless” and bankrolled by the city that’s at the heart of Santa Monica’s high transient population problem. They’re the magnet that draws ‘em here, and the carrot that keeps ‘em here.

The Bayside board recommended last month that the city council take steps to curtail and control the feedings, strengthen ordinances against trespassing and loitering in doorways and to maintain a solid police presence on the Promenade. So far so good, but they also asked for an increase in social services as their No. 1 priority.

Clearly, this is a step in the wrong direction.

The reason why more than 40 “feel good” groups feed in our parks and not their own in Manhattan Beach, Hollywood, Van Nuys, Ventura and elsewhere is “because the homeless are here.” And, it’s a much nicer and safer place to do humanitarian work than Pacoima or Skid Row in downtown LA.

Manhattan Beach and most other municipalities don’t have the high number of transients that we have because they don’t condone the food handouts, provide the social services and they rigidly enforce the laws and prosecute violators.

I know what Bayside board (now chair), John Warfel, was thinking when he suggested the social services infrastructure be expanded to serve the homeless downtown. He was trying show that the Bayside District Corp. is compassionate. But compassion isn’t the purview of the Bayside District Corp., economic vitality is.

As long as there are vagrants, transients and social misfits — housed or unhoused — and people acting anti-socially or in a threatening manner, the average person like you and me will stay away and so will our money. It’s that simple.

John Warfel and most of his fellow city council appointees on the Bayside board apparently share the same philosophy as the city council: Provide as much support as possible “to those in need.” But it is impossible to provide comprehensive and meaningful services to 1,000 transients nightly, especially when a great many of them are not interested in programs and just want to do their own thing.

There is no political will to deal with the problem, and there is no desire by those in power to regulate and curtail the feedings, increase law enforcement or implement any measures that would make Santa Monica less inviting for those who are just out to live off of the rest of us and the system.

It’s just a matter of time before some “transient” does something vile and heinous to a beloved resident. When that happens, maybe the citizens of this community will wake up and say, “enough, already”, and demand big changes to the way the city is governed. (Bill Bauer has been a resident for 32 years in Santa Monica and is a freelance writer.)

*Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on August 2, 2002.* [Read the original PDF.](https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/smdp%5Fbackissues/080202.pdf?ref=smdp.com)