By Charles Springer
I would like to respond to Mr. Bauer's last column about the homeless issues in Santa Monica.
I feel this man is so out of touch with the issue, he has to over-emphasize certain facts of homelessness. He has to bring up the worst fact of homelessness. He never seems to focus on the homeless who are and have been doing positive things with their lives.
Case in point — those of us who work on the cart pushing program and those who work for the farmer’s market. Myself and two other men work everyday to set up the vending carts on the promenade. We work to make money for food, hygiene items and to save to get our lives together.
There are three other people who have gotten their lives together with the cart program and are living in apartments. Through the help of a friend, I have even gotten off the streets, have a bank account and pay rent to him until I can save the money for my own place.
Mr. Bauer also fails to mention the fact that he and other building owners have increased the rent so that no one who is of moderate or low income can afford an apartment in this area. He also fails to mention that there are at least 16,000 apartment vacancies through Westside Rentals alone. Also, the retail vacancy rate being the highest in Los Angeles County.
This makes me wonder where he gets his facts about homelessness. He mentions Chief Butts saying the majority of homeless are straight-out criminals. Well Mr. Bauer does not know that some homeless have never had a criminal record until they became homeless.
Also the SMPD has been using surveillance to give homeless tickets for littering, knowing the recipient of the ticket rarely shows up in court so he/she will wind up with a warrant. This might happen over and over until there are enough warrants to put the person in jail. Even this is only for the night or for the weekend. And when the person goes to court he gets time served and released.
He also fails to mention that most of the transient parole violators are on skid row, which has a homeless population of at least 10 to 15 times the homeless population than Santa Monica. The county jail is right there and most of the parole violators land there first and that is where most of them stay and hide in the larger homeless population.
The Delta Airlines incident, which he mentions, was all of three stewardesses talking about the homeless feeding in front of City Hall on Saturdays. And Mayor Bloom is pretty much correct, it is very safe on the streets of Santa Monica than most other places like let’s say Venice Beach at night.
I also know someone who works in one of the beach hotels and he said no one ever tells their guests it’s not safe after 10 to be on the streets. I don't think that would be a good way to keep repeat business, do you?
Then he mentions about it only being a matter of time before a transient maims or murders a senior citizen or child,. He forgets the murder/suicide that happened in an apartment across the street from his own residence. He also fails to mention the fact that more people have been killed in drive-bys and gang shootings in the Pico neighborhood than have been killed by the homeless population since 1998.
And as far as why people stay away from the downtown area, I have heard more of the people who come here say it is just like any other mall that they have been to than complain about the homeless.
As I have stated many time before, people like Mr. Bauer and Mr. Street are so out of touch with society and the street as a whole they have to dig and dig to find ways to make the reader think like they do.
I have challenged Mr. Bauer to come out here for one month with nothing but what he can carry on his back and see first-hand the reality of the homeless situation. But like most of his ilk, he fears what he does not understand and sees himself as above it.
Well, Mr. Bauer, I have succeeded in getting off the street, as well as still working on getting my education. I will never give up on this and have the love of several friends, many of whom are not homeless, to thank for this.
I also think you have a major problem with people in general. You seem to stand against everything that is community-oriented unless there is a buck in it for you. Maybe you should learn that there are other people in this world besides you and some of them do care about things other than money and power. (Charles Springer is a formerly homeless person, a freelance writer and an artist living in Santa Monica.)
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on June 16, 2003. Read the original PDF.