This past week, Q-line asked: What has to be taken into consideration by local officials to make a pilot program targeted to chronic homeless people, which helps pay their rent in free-market housing in Santa Monica, as successful as possible?
Here are your responses: ✆ “First of all, what needs to be considered is the fact that these people should not be housed in Santa Monica, a prime real estate and high rent area. The money should be directed to the lower-rent areas. Many good citizens have had to leave Santa Monica due to rising rents and many good people can’t afford to relocate here for the same reasons. If these people can’t afford to live here, how can we, the taxpayers afford to house all these indigents here? They need to go where the money will go the furthest, not the high-rent areas.” ✆ “Those we see on the streets of our cities have one thing in common, a denominator — they are awash with chronic and acute alcoholism. To say they are homeless is only partially true. Most are young and have families they could return to if they would behave. Still, they have no intention of behaving. Cleaning and sobering these people up is a good idea. Then their families should be called. They will need constant care or they will return to their quest to reduce themselves to degradation.” ✆ “To ensure that the program will be successful we need a panel of impartial (outside Santa Monica) auditors to see to the disposition of this grant.” ✆ “More of this money will be wasted because a lot of these people are impossible to reason with. Some of them are insane. They should be locked up in the nut house. Some of them are on drugs and booze and they won’t quit the drugs and booze and they should to be locked up in prison. Some of them are just impossible, they won’t be in society, they should be removed out of society or put on a chain gang or something. Some of the ones in Santa Monica are down on their luck, you know maybe they lost a job or got sick and they couldn’t pay their rent. Those are the ones that need help, those are the ones that are willing to accept help and are willing to work to get back on their feet. The rest of them are useless and should be locked up, put on a chain gang, or put in an insane asylum where they belong because they are not fit to be part of society.” ✆ “I strongly recommend that the homelessness program is linked somehow with the department of mental health to provide only psychiatry and medication for the people that are homeless. I think that is an essential link.” ✆ “As a former landlord in this beautiful city of Santa Monica, I wish they would make units available for more people than just the homeless, and I was a captain of a homeless feeding program years ago, but let’s spread it around. Right now, I would love to have a ground floor unit made available to me, but I guess that’s a lot to ask for. But I believe in God, so maybe it will happen.” ✆ “What? $700,000 to put 30 people in free housing? Why are the rest of us working? This money is going to fund another bloated City Hall responsible bureaucracy, the community corporation. What’s left will go to the noneffective, non-profits who profit off the least fortunate in our city. All a nonprofit assistant director, making a $100,000 a year, is worried about is when is his next paycheck and how much does it cost to drive his Volvo two miles to his office. Take all this money and support-proven homeless organizations, the Good Will industries, the Los Angeles Mission, the Salvation Army, the Union Rescue Mission. They bring real hope and faith to the least fortunate in our society. Some of these organizations have experience dating back over a 100 years. They bring Jesus into people’s lives and as disturbing as that maybe to some socialists in this town, I would rather see Jesus as a force in a homeless person’s life than Karl Marx.” ✆ “Helping 30 people won’t work. Get 30 sober living houses and help 300 people get gradually back on their feet.” ✆ “There is so much homeless bashing over public urination and that they are dirty, yet most public bathrooms close at 6 p.m. There are no public restrooms on Main Street and few on the Promenade where they mostly hang out. Where’s a homeless person supposed to get a drink of water and poop in this city, especially after 6 p.m.? It would help the homeless population and keep the neighborhoods cleaner if we spent the money on simple things like extending the bathroom hours and adding public restrooms and a few showers.” ✆ “First, that part of this money does not end up into the pockets of those who have benefited in the past, including friends, family, and relatives. Also, I feel that a detailed business plan should be set up for all Santa Monicans to see what program is getting what and how much, etc. And that should be monitored for honesty and accuracy. A lot of money has been poured into this program in the past and if something was done and if people were honest, then this situation would not have reached this disgusting proportions of people that we see on the street today. So I feel honesty is the first thing, hiring somebody else to do the job is not it. Santa Monicans should see how much each program is getting. I feel that if there is honesty, the program should work, whatever program it is should work.” ✆ “f you don’t require sobriety, don’t even bother, don’t spend any money on it because it won’t do any good. A handout and a hand up are two different things.”
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on August 27, 2005. Read the original PDF.