Homelessness

By Kevin McKeown

Homelessness is not a crime, but some homeless people engage in criminal behavior. Can we keep that distinction clear as we craft public policy to reduce the impacts of homelessness on Santa Monica? We must take action now, but we must make it thoughtful action.

Our challenge is to make it the right action, an action that will help solve the problems, not just move them or hide them. We also mustn't forget our decisions affect real living people. I'm willing to work a bit harder for true solutions, rather than vote reactively for a short-term feel-good band-aid.

At a City Council meeting in late September we heard many new voices from the community. I'm grateful that we not only broadened our understanding of the issues and their urgency, but were given an opportunity to pause and think through the suggested actions and where they might lead. I wish the Council had been willing to take better advantage of that opportunity.

By banning sleeping in doorways in some commercial areas, without considering the implications and then weighing alternatives, will we move more homeless people into residential neighborhood carports and laundry rooms? I'll watch closely, because I think our residents deserve as much consideration as do downtown business interests.

Food distribution has become a hot button. It's important to realize these outdoor programs in our parks are not funded by the City, nor are they encouraged. The meals are provided by charitable organizations, many faith-based, and some from out of town.

Sharing food with the poor shouldn't be a crime, but we'd all benefit from moving the charitable providers indoors and coordinating them with our successful social service programs, to help people off the street permanently. This has been my position ever since I served as an alternate on the City's Homelessness Task Force in 1991. I'm interested in working with the food distribution programs and the social service agencies to make this happen.

The food programs serve seniors, persons with disabilities, the working poor and welfare families as well as the homeless. We mustn't forget that. Whatever legitimate public health concerns there may be with the outdoor food programs, they are healthier than starvation or dumpster diving.

Unfortunately, the majority of my Council colleagues insisted on requiring permits (and thereby reducing the food programs) without first directing ascertainment of whether sufficient other options were available in our community for the simply poor, many housed, who rely on free food distribution to survive. That's why I voted against that ordinance.

The recent testimony before the City Council reinforced that our problems aren't being caused by those who've had too much to eat. Many of the problems are with those who've had too much to drink. Untreated alcoholism, drug abuse and mental illness are the REAL public health issues we need to address. The misery they and poverty cause are a regional, state and national disgrace.

I'm proud of our Santa Monica community for its compassionate willingness to do what we can with problems not of our making that literally end up on our doorsteps. We have borne more than our share.

We need to turn to the county, the state and the federal government and insist on their help. A society that has allowed its social safety net to fray and fail should not be surprised when as a result more people hit bottom.

We have good laws on the books to control the anti-social behaviors by which a few among the homeless make life more difficult for all the rest of us. Let's enforce those laws fully and fairly, and get the predators and lawbreakers off the streets. Then let's work together to help those who want and deserve our compassion and real assistance.