The Daily Press asks, “What do you think about homelessness in Santa Monica?”
“I think it’s ridiculous. We have 100 percent of the homeless here, and 90 percent can work. They are young and healthy enough. Only 10 percent is mentally ill. Those are the ones we need to take care of. The others are just bad people, and we should kick them out.” — Ali Atter, manager of Santa Monica Tobacco “It’s bad that just because we help the homeless there are communities like LA bringing people in and saying, ‘You deal with it.’ But like it says in the Bible, we’re always going to have poverty. I hope it could be a rotating thing, where people can come in, get the services they need to find housing and find work and get where they need to go.” — Sandy Dolbee, Santa Monica resident “Obviously it’s a problem here. They heckle and they bother people — one pulled my hair once — but I’m not one to cast judgment. I think we should spend more money on finding them jobs.” — Ryan Mitchell, former Santa Monica resident, now lives in Los Angeles “There’s too many. This is just the place they all congregate. Every time I come here it gets worse and worse.” — Chris Heckmann, Bakersfield “What the city does? It isn’t enough. There needs to be more housing, especially on rainy days, and I wish the library would let me in with my bags. I have nowhere to put them, and the $40 I’d pay for storage is more the worth of what’s in them.” — Roberta Bourbon
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on January 24, 2005. Read the original PDF.