By Ken McCrae S.H.E.L.T.E.R., Santa Monica
Regarding the ongoing letters to the editor dialogue concerning your profile of “Cancer” Alucard (SMDP, May 24, page 1).
Has anybody noticed that Alucard is “Dracula” spelled backwards? This vampire and his friends (and the professional panhandlers which populate the Promenade) are a good part of the reason for the current anti-homeless climate in our once-friendly (at least, tolerant) city. They suck up food and services that might otherwise help truly homeless persons to return to mainstream society.
I hope in the future you will portray the real face of Santa Monica’s homeless. To meet and learn about Santa Monica’s truly homeless, I invite you (and your readers) to visit a meeting of Side by Side, a 10-year-old coalition of housed and homeless Santa Monica citizens. (The first, third and fifth Wednesday of each month, 7 p.m., Ken Edwards Center on Fourth Street.) For more information regarding the homeless community’s position concerning this subject, I refer you to the 2002 and 2003 “Review of Santa Monica’s Homeless Services By Those Who Use Them” available from City Hall.
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on June 7, 2004. Read the original PDF.