The death of a transient in Santa Monica a few weeks ago could be dismissed as another unfortunate incident.
But it’s only one more in a long string of deaths and tragedies involving our homeless.
Want to assign blame? Start with a dys-functional homeless services system and a city leadership blinded by the light from their halos.
A couple of liquored-up transients got into a donnybrook Thursday evening, Nov. 13. Afterwards, one of the combatants, Bobby Ray Capps, was jumped by a friend of his opponent bent on retaliation.
During the melee, Capps hit his head on a pole and was sent to a local hospital, where his wound was stitched up. By Sunday morning, Capps had died — probably as a result of his head injury. The other pugilist was later arrested and charged with manslaughter.
The Santa Monica Daily Press reported that the victim and his brother had lived along the freeway for about seven years and that the two had been homeless in Santa Monica since 1991.
Homeless here for 12 years? Living under a freeway overpass since 1996? Where are Santa Monica’s vaunted social services?
I’m willing to bet a sack lunch that these three were all regulars at the nearby Ocean Park Community Center’s Access Center at 1616 Seventh Street where those truly in need, as well as the drug addicts, alcoholics, the mentally and physically impaired and those who have just “given up” seek help.
There, anyone can receive a free brown-bag lunch, check their mail, hang out and receive basic services for years on end with no questions asked.
A surprising number of transients have been on our streets for a decade or longer, living a free life aided by service providers that respect their clients’ anonymity and desire to be left alone.
Thousands of homeless utilize city-subsidized services annually. They also take advantage of the dozens of weekly, private-sector food giveaways in our public parks.
These are the magnets that bring ’em here and keep ’em here.
Assaults, injuries and death among the homeless are commonplace. And let’s not forget the mentally impaired, who drift from food line to drop-in center in a perpetual twilight zone.
Meanwhile, service organizations often exploit the myth that “more services get more people off the street” when soliciting for donations. The problem is that many of these services attract and enable more transients. And they contribute indirectly to the crime, dirt, fear and hostile environment that has become Santa Monica.
The Georgian Hotel is one of Santa Monica’s finest — a grand dame that recently celebrated its 70th anniversary with a “gala charity fundraiser aimed at getting people off the street.”
In the SMDP (Nov. 10, 2003), the hotel’s general manager, Paul Hortobagyi, stated, “The homeless drive our business into the ground. Tourists are often put off guard by panhandlers and vagrants who engage in antisocial behaviors.”
He’s right. The Georgian’s front terrace is prime territory for panhandlers pestering hotel visitors. Nevertheless, Georgian management still hosted a fundraiser for the Ocean Park Community Center, whose multi-million dollar budget enables the very vagrants Hortobagyi complains about.
Hortobagyi told me, “After years of complaining about the problem (that did no good), we thought maybe we would change our direction and get on the right track by helping out for a change.”
I laud Hortobagyi for his efforts, but history tells me that tossing more and more money at the problem is heading down the wrong track and makes things worse.
As Santa Monica’s reputation as “the place for services” spreads, the gulf between the numbers coming here and those who actually “get off the street” widens. The situation becomes even more unattainable.
Until City Hall and its tax-subsidized providers reform the “social service continuum” by cutting off freeloaders, there will be more deaths, more misery and more “walking dead.” Inevitably, it’s a matter of time before a resident or child is killed. Who’ll take the blame then?
To the business community and rest of you whose misplaced compassion contributes to a bad situation, the Santa Monica Chamber of Commerce saw the light and wisely curtailed its homeless advocacy.
Learn from a 20-year history of more vagrants, more money, more services more problems and more deaths. It’s time to get real and stop believing myths. (Bill Bauer is a longtime Santa Monica resident and a freelance writer).
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on December 5, 2003. Read the original PDF.