By Marilyn Brennan
Regarding Randy Walburger’s letter of Sept. 11 (“Homeless issue lacks perspective”) chastising Bill Bauer and others who write about the transient situation in our city: I don’t believe that Mr. Bauer and others are attacking the truly poor and homeless among us. There are very few people who would not feel compassion for these people: The ones who leave an abusive home with their children; the ones who have lost their jobs (probably due to the outsourcing frenzy); the ones who are not paid a living wage; the mentally ill and addicted who need hospitalization and/or treatment; the elderly on fixed incomes.
There are few among us who have not needed a helping hand at one time or another.
I believe the complaints are directed at the large population of transients: The drug addicts; the alcoholics who support their habits at our expense and are enabled in their slow suicide by the city; the ones who walk into businesses located by the centers that feed them, steal things and pick up heavy glass and threaten employees and smash things; the ones who aggressively threaten people (usually women or the elderly) with harm if they don’t fork over money; the ones who break car windows in parking areas to steal what they can; the ones who take over the parks and urinate and defecate in front of our children; the ones who spit on passersby; the ones who support their habits by theft and/or violence. If these individuals are “homeless,” it’s because the rent money goes up their noses or into their bodies by various methods. It is my belief that this population should also be helped by treatment for their addictions, and not by given three hots and a cot which just enables them and deepens their addictions.
Help should be given to those who want sobriety, and thus, to become a contributing member of society. Alcoholics Anonymous and 12-step programs are free, but sobriety should be the criteria for help extended. As it is, the city has become the giant magnet and enabler of the addicted population, few of whom were Santa Monica residents before hitting the skids. If, on the other hand, they desire to keep putting alcohol/drugs in their system until they’re dead, so be it — but Santa Monica can’t continue helping them do it here on our streets and parks.
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on September 18, 2007. Read the original PDF.