Council Tackles Homeless Issues

By Oliver Lukacs
Staff Writer

Oct. 29 -- After harsh criticism from one council member that nothing’s changed and a call by another for stricter legal measures to curb antisocial behavior, the City Council Tuesday night unanimously signed off on the annual report on the homeless, which the majority praised for the progress it documented.

The news that Santa Monica’s $8 million homeless services system -- which receives $2 million from the City -- got nearly 1,500 people off the streets and into either temporary or permanent housing in 2002-03 and landed 682 homeless in stable jobs was welcomed progress for some, but a disappointing sign of a futile uphill battle for others.

While a kaleidoscopic array of perspectives were represented on the dais and by the more than a dozen public speakers who chimed in, Councilman Ken Genser best summed up the seemingly contradictory aims of the two general schools of thought. While some homeless deserve to be helped, he said, others need to be punished for their anti-social behavior.

“I think we have a problem in this community." Genser said. "I don’t think it’s because of the programs that we fund. It’s our obligation as human beings and as a municipality to fund these programs.”

Responding to concerns that the services lure more homeless to the city instead of making things better Genser said, “They're not getting better for society as a whole, their getting better for individuals.”

But after hearing from the Chamber of Commerce and an employee of the Hotel Casa del Mar about customers and visitors being driven away by the “antisocial” behavior of homeless people, Genser asked City officials about the legal tools available to hold the homeless to a “certain standard of behavior.”

“We need to find a way to more clearly send a message that there are consequences for not behaving appropriately in our society," he said. "We should be holding people to a certain standard of behavior at least to the extent that the law allows.”

Police Chief James T. Butts, Jr. said his department was conducting weekly panhandling sting operations, round-the-clock enforcement of a new law prohibiting sleeping in Downtown doorways and daily pick-ups of parole and probation violators, the majority of whom are homeless.

“When it comes anti-social behavior," Butts said, "we have manifested a zero tolerance posture.”

While there is nothing else the police can do from a legal standpoint, Butts made several suggestions: “What will yield the most fruit is help those who can be helped, minimize the feedings that draw more homeless and continue to address where we can anti-social behavior.”

Councilman Robert Holbrook was displeased with the kind of “progress” resulting from the City's strategy. “We spend 500 times per capita on homeless services compared to Los Angeles, and we’ve helped lots of people, but we still have the same problem,” he said.

Pointing out that one of the goals outlined in the 1994 voter referendum on homelessness in Santa Monica (which mandates the yearly progress report) is “clearly to reduce the number of homeless people on the street,” Holbrook asked: “Has that happened?”

“I don’t think any place in the country has reduced the number of homeless people on the street,” said Julie Rusk, the City’s head of human services.

“That’s a no,” Holbrook replied.

“It has not been reduced, but it has remained relatively constant,” said Rusk, citing two RAND surveys on the homeless population spanning nearly a decade (1990-99) that lead to the conclusion that the numbers have not significantly changed.

“I think we’ve struggled to deal with this in a balanced way,” said Rusk.

Other council members were more enthusiastic about the achievements of homeless servives providers.

Mayor Pro Tem Kevin McKeown called the 460 homeless the City’s continuum of care helped place into permanent housing “a spectacular number.

"It speaks to the effectiveness of services," McKeown said. "We have not increased the funding but the effectiveness has increased.”

Mayor Richard Bloom also lauded the system's accomplishments. Bloom’s voice choked up a little when he pointed out that of the estimated 84,000 vagrants living on the streets of Los Angeles County on any given night, almost half are mentally or physically ill, while over a quarter of that population is made up of homeless families.

“This is a shame on our country, and on our communities. This is something we have to address seriously,” said Bloom, who is part of a nationwide effort to end homelessness in 10 years.

Personifying Genser’s earlier point that the continuum of care is improving the lives of individuals but not society as a whole, was the last person to speak.

The women said she was born into a wealthy family, graduated from an ivy league college, made a million dollars, inherited a million and still found herself homeless on the streets of Santa Monica.