By Joyce Borinstein Santa Monica
It was great that U.S. Senator Dianne Feinstein came to Santa Monica last week to warn us about the “growing possibility” of oil drilling off our coast (SMDP, Aug. 30, page 1). And how fitting to hold the press conference looking out over our beach and bay.
I hope the irony was not lost on Santa Monicans: It would be funny if it were not so shameful. From that same vantage point, one can also see plenty of homeless people living on our beach. About one-third of them are veterans. That’s not a “possibility;” it is reality, as it was when Feinstein became a Senator in 1992.
With the war in Iraq producing a steady stream of returning vets — many who now have physical and mental disabilities — we’re not talking about a “growing possibility,”but a growing crisis.
What is Senator Feinstein doing about this crisis? As ranking member of the Military Construction and Veterans Affairs Subcommittee of the powerful Senate Appropriations Committee, she could do something right now to ease the plight of homeless veterans in Southern California: See that some of the empty buildings on the West Los Angeles Veterans’ Administration campus are turned into supportive housing for homeless veterans.
Feinstein could make it happen if she wanted to. Santa Monica has been asking for this housing for more than a year now, in the form of a written proposal submitted by four homeless veterans’ service providers to the VA Secretary in Washington, D.C.
Here are two interesting quotes from Feinstein’s 2005 Veterans’ Day speech to the Senate: “It is estimated that 500,000 veterans spent all or part of this past year homeless. But tragically, the VA only has the capabilities to assist one-fifth of all homeless veterans. We must continue to push for the development of an effective and expansive therapeutic housing program to help these thousands of Veterans.”
“In West Los Angeles, pressure is increasing on the VA to develop some of the last open space left in the Los Angeles Basin. Land donated to honor the service of veterans should be kept in the hands of veterans. We cannot allow our responsibility to former service members to be subordinated to economic interests.”
Why doesn’t the Senator put her political clout where her mouth is? Could it be that the increased pressure for commercial development on some of that space is being exerted successfully on her?
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on September 6, 2006. Read the original PDF.