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# The handicapped can’t enjoy SM
- URL: https://www.smdp.com/the-handicapped-cant-enjoy-sm-editor/
- Published: 2007-09-03T15:00:00.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-24T02:45:51.000Z
- Author: Guest Author
- Tags: Opinion, Santa Monica, #archive-import, Homeless

*By Kelly Charpenet Santa Monica*

Your piece (“Halt who goes there...,” Aug. 18) was well-intentioned. I thank (The Daily Press) for that.

I am simply frustrated that (story subject Donald Rynder) remains in the alley, without any prospects, and the only thing City Hall can talk about is funding a “sensitivity program.” While that is admirable, it hardly addresses the fact that there is no place in the city to help the homeless disabled.

Did you know: • OPCC (our flagship homeless center — not a shelter, but somewhere to shower) does not accommodate handicapped people? • There are no homeless shelters in Santa Monica? So no ADA discrimination there... Santa Monica appears to simply toss aside all people without shelter equally • Did you know why, specifically, Don (Rynder) is a war hero?

After he was wounded, he carried another — more wounded — soldier on his back for 43 miles through the hostile Vietnam jungle. He received the Purple Heart and was offered the Congressional Medal of Honor four times! He turned it down each time because they would not also offer it to the wounded soldier he carried through the jungle.

I wonder what is to happen to the soldiers that are coming back from Iraq with disabilities. Are we going to ignore them as well? Are we going to let them wither away, stepping over them day in and day out? I’m beginning to think this is the decided public policy and it saddens and angers me.

I am writing to (express) my appreciation for what coverage you did provide and my hope that you don’t stop discussing this issue.

*Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on September 3, 2007.* [Read the original PDF.](https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/smdp%5Fbackissues/090307.pdf?ref=smdp.com)