By Charles Springer
Wake up and smell the coffee! And I’m not talking about Starbuck’s or Coffee Bean and Tea leaf either! You are now seeing, firsthand, how the corporate world is deleting our constitutional rights right here in Santa Monica. Greed has taken hold of this city, and you are seeing it right before your very eyes.
Since I have been in this beautiful city, I have seen rent control abolished and people forced from their apartments so the land barons can raise the rent to market value. I have seen more high-cost housing than low-cost go up, (at least at a rate of 10 or more to 1). I have seen mom and pop businesses get pushed out to make way for high-end stores that people who live here REALLY don’t want to shop at. And it is becoming like this all over the westside.
Now, as a Christian, I know the church is supposed to be the conscience of the community it serves, and the working and responsible homeless are part of this community. So where were the churches, who don’t feed the homeless on a regular basis, the day the two anti-homeless ordinances passed last week to be that conscience?
Where was this coalition of churches that support the living wage increase on that day? I guess those of us who are not working for a business that makes over $5 million a year are not worthy God’s love and protection. I guess some of the churches in Santa Monica are only for the rich who can give the money to support it. I guess the pastors of these churches think that what Christ did to the money changers and merchants who set up shop in his temple were not examples of what he expects his church homes here in Santa Monica to be like. I guess some of Santa Monica’s churches are exempt from God’s laws.
No wait. I think they also lobbied the city council and he got voted out of Santa Monica.
How many of you who are Christians, who could afford to, would actually help out a homeless person by donating money to a hotel for a room in the area for a week? Or, God forbid, take one of us homeless people into your home? And I’m speaking of the responsible ones out here who work or go to school. Not the mentally ill, the criminal element or chronically addicted.
Most of the churches here are some of the richest in Los Angeles County. And approximately four or five churches are in the zone that this sleeping ordinance covers. How many of these churches pastors would stand up for their constitutional rights of freedom of religion and grant any of us sanctuary? Or is that reserved for when an earthquake or some other natural disaster hits the homeowners and renters in the area? Or, are they afraid that the Santa Monica Chamber of Commerce might get the city to do something to them? I guess they think God won’t protect them. I know a 26-year-old homeless woman from the East Coast who has a job. She works at a store in the mall and is trying to get her life back on track. Now she is going to have to hope she doesn’t get arrested for sleeping on someone’s property in one of the surrounding neighborhoods, and possibly lose her job for it.
I guess the examples of Jesus are lost on some of the Christian churches in the area. I guess if Jesus were here today you would turn a deaf ear to him as well. Or, have him arrested for sleeping in the doorway of a business within the area of the sleeping ordinance, because he also was homeless — by choice. He told us to take care of all who are needy, not just those who are favored. He told the Christians to be the example to those who do not believe in order to show his love to all of humankind El Nino is coming and it’s going to be a very wet, cold winter. The cold weather shelter beds in L.A. County are not enough to handle the amount of homeless on the streets. There are those of us who do not use them so that the older, weaker and handicapped ones out here don’t die from exposure. I know this because I was out here for the last El Nino.
I had a small tent campsite right under the last pedestrian overpass in Palisades Park. I had two three-man dome tents and one two-man mountain tent set up. There were between eight to ten people in them on any given night. With my military training and experience, I had dug trenches and burms around each tent and put sod over the tops of the burms so that the water would not wash us out of there. I also dug a deep fire pit for warmth. All of the burms are still there to this day.
Sometimes a man would come by and give me food, clothes, soap, tooth paste, deodorant and cigarettes. He also gave me a battery-operated lantern and an extra set of batteries so I could study as it was my first semester in Santa Monica College. I also remember the times when I slept under the stairs at the Woman’s Club on Fourth Street and a young couple who used to bring us sandwiches at night. They were a very attractive couple physically, so I used to call them the Ken and Barbie Angels. And when I slept under the black trailer by Sears Automotive, I used to find food, clothes and one day even a pillow and a blanket outside my little dwelling, which I had built out of cardboard and forklift pallets. And a few months ago I was sleeping under the stairs right behind Gorgio Vasari's and used to find fruit or food under the stairs. Two of my own bosses, who are Muslim, lent me the money to buy my textbooks for my Japanese class. My other boss’ girlfriend had lent me money to help keep this hotel I’m in now.
I know a Christian pastor who comes to the Promenade and preaches every week who has fed me numerous times when I didn’t have a job. He saw my need and realized I was a responsible Christian. He responded as Jesus would have. I have a Christian sponsor who has given me help in all areas which I need help in. He also has helped get many of us off the streets and into rehabs and shelters.
And what about the outside churches? What makes them any different than those churches within Santa Monica that didn’t support the efforts to block these two ordinances? Do you think these churches would send food here that is tainted or would harm a human being? I have been to these feeding lines and never have I been sick from the food. And if it is hygiene that is a problem for some of the homeless, how many churches have showers that, when not in use, could be used to let those of us who might do better in life if they could be clean and presentable get clean?
Yes, there are showers here for us to use, but with only eight clean, safe showers in the area and hundreds of homeless, well, you get the picture. I guess these pastors believe God put his church here for those who are affluent and wealthy. I guess they believe he only created wealthy people and they are better than homeless people. No, he created all of us and he created us the same.
Yes, it was a sad day indeed when God got voted out of Santa Monica.
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on October 28, 2002. Read the original PDF.