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# Readers sound off on homeless question
- URL: https://www.smdp.com/readers-sound-off-on-homeless-question-20030620/
- Published: 2003-06-20T15:00:00.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-23T02:22:52.000Z
- Author: Guest Author
- Tags: Community, Promenade, #archive-import, Homeless, Homelessness

Earlier this week, Q-line asked: “What can be done regionally to alleviate Santa Monica of its growing homeless population?”

Here are your responses: ■ “To solve the homeless problem, you could build housing for homeless veterans on the grounds of the federal building. There’s plenty of MP land there, a hospital and security. The mentally impaired homeless should be taken to a proper facility. The rest could be housed in the new Belmont Learning Center. Maybe they could be educated and learn something. It can’t be used for students. It should be put to some good use. And then we could get them all out of Santa Monica.” ■ “You should have thought of that when you started feeding all these homeless. It’s like a dog, if you stop feeding them, they’re going to go away to someplace else to look for food. Why should Santa Monica, Beverly Hills and Culver City get themselves involved in a program that has not been successful in Santa Monica? All it’s created is more homeless. There’s some members of the City Council who are Pollyannas when it comes to the homeless and they don’t want to face the fact that these people are causing businesses to lose money, especially on the Promenade. And I guess they’ll wake up when a lot more businesses move out of the Promenade. I live four blocks from the Promenade. I do not shop in Santa Monica. I do not put up with the homeless coming up and panhandling me for money. The Promenade and the areas around it — Wilshire, Arizona, Santa Monica, Broadway and Colorado, all Santa Monica — smell to high heaven. I just can’t imagine why this City Council has allowed this problem to denigrate Santa Monica. It used to be a real nice city. I was raised here. I went to school here. I moved out of here 40 years ago and I’m sorry I moved back. I’m moving out of here in the next six months and, boy, am I glad. People need to vote out the City Councilmembers that have voted to extend this homeless problem and then maybe something will be done about it, but I doubt it because now it’s too late. It’s like closing the barn door after the horse is loose and I don’t blame Culver City, West Hollywood or Beverly Hills for not getting involved. Can you picture Beverly Hills and the homeless sleeping in their parks and on the streets of Rodeo? No, I can’t.” ■ “The only hope for anyone soaked in alcohol is sobriety.” ■ “So we have to have yet another committee to sit down and ponder the problem of homelessness. How many does that make? Whatever these collective heads come up with, please don’t ask the beleaguered taxpayers for any more money. Cut the salaries at the top and eliminate the fat from the staffing at all levels. Santa Monica is a lost cause anyway.” ■ “First of all we need a City Council that works to resolve the city’s problems, not create them.” ■ “First of all, we have to stop feeding these vagrants and homeless people that hang around Santa Monica and stop handing out money for nothing. People need to learn that one has to earn their way in this world. My suggestion would be to start some kind of work program at all levels of skill and intelligence. There is lots that can be done in the world and certainly these people that are on the boards and different committees can come up with something with their kind of work experience and intelligence for these idlers to do so they won’t be forced to steal and just hang around and be a public nuisance.” ■ “Identify where each homeless person came from and provide a one-way ticket back. Mandated by the federal government, each city should have the responsibility of only assisting their own homeless folks.” ■ “I have a business in downtown Santa Monica and I see two things. First, you have to apply all the regulations. For example, you’re not supposed to give food to the homeless. Second, you should, perhaps, give tickets to the people who do so. If we do that, maybe it would work.”

*Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on June 20, 2003.* [Read the original PDF.](https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/smdp%5Fbackissues/062003.pdf?ref=smdp.com)