By QUIRKY FEELING A special slave to the Daily Planet
After five years of extensive research, the Rand Corp. announced Thursday that rampant homelessness and gridlocked traffic are actually not problems in Santa Monica after all.
In a newly-released, 16-volume study featuring more than 20,000 pages of highly-technical language, the think tank concluded the effects of both issues are “minimal at best” and “a drop in the bucket when you really think about what is going on in the world.”
Although just elected to the City Council in 2004, first-term Councilman Bobby Coniver was credited for commissioning the five-year study.
Compiled by a team of 200 analysts, researchers and engineers, the study surveyed what residents perceived to be problems in the city and compared them to issues Rand employees determined Santa Monicans should actually be worried about.
While homelessness and traffic topped the residents’ list of perceived troubles, the issues ranked a meager 204 and 205 on Rand’s 206-point list of actual problems, the study showed.
Only a severed finger found in Wendy’s chili was considered less of a threat to Santa Monica’s population.
Contents of the report revealed that Santa Monica is not only perfectly equipped to handle its homeless population, it should also be recruiting vagrants from surrounding areas.
While the city has a homeless population 75 percent larger than any other area in the county, it also has the highest percentage of dumpsters — more than enough to accommodate the large load of homeless within the city.
The current dumpster to homeless ratio is 15 to 1, said Rand researcher Ian Eagor. That ratio could increase to almost 40 to 1, he said, before area dumpsters became so crowded they would begin begging for food at a rate which would force residents and tourists to experience any unreasonable feelings of guilt and annoyance.
The study also found sustaining a sizable homeless and vagrant population to be vital to the mental health of the Santa Monica’s taxpaying residents.
According to Rand scientist Mark Frak, viewing the less fortunate is an excellent daily reminder for the upper-middle class of just how successful they are.
Santa Monica resident and real estate broker Douglas Dirtpimp agrees.
“Some days when my Blackberry is running low on batteries and my kid’s Guadalajaran nanny calls to say she can’t go to my son’s little league game because she’s having cataracts surgery, it’s nice to see there are people in this world a lot worse off than myself,” he said. “It’s refreshing.”
Past Rand studies have concluded that cities with the lowest percentage of homelessness nationwide also have the highest depression levels.
“Everyone in Santa Monica is extremely happy,” said Rand researcher Mary Lamb.
As for other non-issues in Santa Monica, Rand found that the city’s traffic is flowing along nicely.
Rand surveyor Evan Doolittle charted Santa Monica’s traffic every day for a year, and said it was not atypical to see cars flying by at 28 mph. In the state of California, traffic is not considered a problem until it slows to 6 mph, he said. At this rate, Santa Monica will not reach any real gridlock for at least three years, “and by that time research shows us most of the current population will have moved to Arizona,” he said.
The study results were bittersweet for 35-year veteran Rand researcher Hurbert Wizard.
“After half a decade of studying the city’s biggest problems, we have found that they aren’t problems at all,” he said. “Obviously, this is good news for the city but kind of distressing within for us because we just spent five years on this for nothing.”
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on April 1, 2005. Read the original PDF.