By Charles Springer
I would like to thank Mr. Jankowski for sharing in his letter (SMDP, July 13, page 4). As I read this I sat with my “dirty, smelly” homeless friends at the Shwashlock shower facility while waiting to take our daily showers.
I do this every weekday after eating at OPCC and before going to my AA meeting to maintain my sobriety while being homeless, then off to Santa Monica College to work on learning computer animation software so I can get a job with a living wage which would help me to pay the high rents in LA so I don’t have to live in downtown LA amongst the gangs and drugs and the dangerous environment which that precipitates.
I would also like to thank Mr. Jankowski for reminding me of how the rents have soared in the past six years since rent control was rescinded in Santa Monica and other parts of LA County and how this is but one of the reasons some of us became homeless.
Thank you, sir, for reminding me how, in the past 20 years or so, the jobs with any type living wages attached to them, have been outsourced. And the fact that over one half of his federal taxes are inciting — oops, I mean, supporting a war on terrorism and sending our children off to die. As well as letting good old King George spend enough money since he got into office to not only close the deficit, but stop poverty and homelessness in the whole United States, if not damn near the whole world, on this war.
Thank you, sir, for reminding me that I am an American citizen, as well as a former Marine who, along with others, served my country so you are able to express your opinion in this newspaper and that my own constitutional rights are not so badly eroded that I can do the same.
Thank you sir for reminding me that the homeless population in LA County has expanded to more than 90,000 plus, and Santa Monica’s population is at 88,000 and the homeless population in Santa Monica is only about 1 to 2 percent of this figure. And that the Santa Monica City Council is trying to be a leader in the eradication of homelessness countywide. I am proud to live in this type of progressive city whose elected officials are not afraid to be leaders instead of followers.
Thank you sir for reminding me that a mind is much like a parachute, it only functions when open. So as you free fall along the path of your life as a working stiff, maybe you can stop harassing the homeless for urinating in your alley and trying to waste the police department’s time with such a petty issues as a urinating in public ticket and become part of the solution. You are either part of the solution or part of the problem. Which do you choose to be Mr. Jankowski?
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on July 15, 2005. Read the original PDF.