Who are Santa Monica’s homeless? I get asked this question quite often. Who are they? In other words, is there a particular economic or ethnic group that makes up the majority of the homeless population? I usually answer, “You will probably be surprised.
When someone asked me, “Hey, did you hear that Johnny’s gone?” I thought that he had finally decided to go into a housing program. Johnny was one of the homeless that I talked to every day.
When Nancy was in high school she had dreams just like most other young girls. She was going somewhere. Her hopes included attending college, getting married, starting a family, having a home and much more.
Gregory’s smile was like none other. It’s mesmerizing. Gregory is a gentle giant in his early 40s. Big and tall, he is a man of very few words. The day I met him he was with a homeless person that we know that had been trying to help him since the afternoon before.
It’s happened three times since Christmas. We have met three honorably-discharged Iraqi and/or Afghanistan war veterans that were homeless. They were all very young and had one thing in common.
Help comes in a lot of different ways for the homeless. Santa Monica has one of the best systems of care in the country. Good words can travel quite a distance.
When Daily Press Editor-in-Chief Kevin Herrera called to ask if I would like to write a human interest story every month about people who are homeless, I must have sounded a little off and out of breath with my, “Yes.
