By Pro Se Santa Monica
A true leader moves forward to change the world with both vision and a plan. The un-housed do not have to die from drugs, booze or violence in shelters, emergency rooms and on the streets. The U.S. government’s fair share in providing exits to homelessness would be to allow the cities to redirect their service-receptive homeless to Veteran Administration (V.A.) facilities where all benefit checks would go directly to the V.A. and used for being rehabilitated off of alcohol and drugs, housed, clothed, feed, receive childcare, paid job training (money to be held in security deposit to pay for housing), full medical care, and receive case management. The federal government, all states, all cities will provide its fair share of funding by giving $5 contribution per year to the V.A. for each resident.
A constitutional amendment is needed to provide for real exits for homelessness. A constitutional amendment must be enacted to allow all cities to apply strict camping laws that would apply equally to all persons caught without a police-issued camping permit; violators would be prosecuted. The police will give one-time only warnings to any camper caught without a permit by warning the violator to get a permit or camp out of the city. The federal government must provide funding to the cities to hire more police to cut off the booze, drugs and gangs citywide! Stop criminal and antisocial behavior by expanding the police to deal with liquor stores, bars that flagrantly supply inebriates with alcohol and put them out of business.
All cities need to “triage” those asking for services based on length of time in the city. All homeless services should be linked to goals or results. Those failing to meet the stated goals of a program or services should be dropped. A 95 percent cut in homeless on the streets over five years is realistic and this goal can be achieved by coordi-nating strategies, enforcement, services and controlling free handouts.Services should be focused on the mentally ill, elderly and women who suffer the most on the streets. Homeless service providers should work closely with the police department. Communication between providers, and the police is vital in order to locate, outreach and serve those in real need.
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on November 13, 2002. Read the original PDF.