Vagrants ‘Overwhelming’ Santa Monica

A new sign has gone up at a neighborhood park in Santa Monica. It warns adults without children to keep out. There is also a new fence around the city’s shuffleboard courts. It is supposed to protect elderly players from predators.

At an outdoor mall, you can still see the holes left from when obstructive wood strips called “bum bars” were bolted to the benches in December. That experiment failed after some residents said it was inhumane.

Officials are still searching for ways to tackle the seemingly intractable problem of homelessness that is felt across the seaside city--in law enforcement, in its fractious politics and in its image-conscious tourist trade. Even liquor stores are feeling the heat from a proposal to ban cheap wine.

“Our patience is being taxed,” said Mayor Christine E. Reed. “The residents of this community feel that enough is enough. We are overwhelmed.”

Abundance of Vagrants

At times the vagrants seem to be everywhere--scattered like obstacles in the pathways of Palisades Park joggers, crowding out elderly people for space on public benches and standing on street corners with outstretched hands.

They have created a social dilemma that has anguished and divided the liberal and affluent city more than any other issue in recent years.

Officials estimate that the beach community is home to 700 to 1,000 vagrants at any given time, making it second only to Venice among Los Angeles County’s coastal cities.

The county’s annual social services budget of more than $500,000 is higher than any comparable-sized area, according to county officials, and has grown by 500% in two years. More than 40% of the people served by those funds are mentally ill, according to city officials. An estimated 25% are children, and a smaller percentage are alcoholics.

“Our population is more socially concerned,” Reed said. “That’s what got us where we are with regard to funding. . . . But I would say that every citizen in our community over the age of 5 or 6 has probably had some unpleasant contact with a vagrant. And I don’t think it’s going to stop.”

‘Number One Problem’

“Without a doubt, it’s our number one problem,” said Santa Monica Police Chief James Keane. “I get more complaints about transients than anything. The problem is that there is no consensus in our community. Half of the citizens want us to feed and care for them and the other half wish they’d go away.”

Sidney Rosenthal is one resident who wishes they would go away. The 72-year-old Rosenthal used to spend his days sitting on a bench at Palisades Park, the palm-lined park known for its spectacular ocean views. But Rosenthal said he and others from the Senior Recreation Center are fearful for their safety now.

“This place has become a public toilet,” Rosenthal said of the park. “It’s terrible here. The bums heckle us, they steal. You get disgusted watching them.”

Other residents in the community of 90,000 have also expressed fear and anger. But City Councilmen Dennis Zane said the city cannot just make the vagrants go away.

‘Not by Punitive Route’

“We are a government committed to finding ways to address the problem,” Zane said. “But not by simply taking the punitive route. I’m proud that we have resisted the politically expedient approach that doesn’t work.”

Mary Lee Gray, a deputy to Supervisor Deane Dana, said Santa Monica does much more for the homeless than most cities. But she said its problems are also bigger. Gray said vagrants have realized that Santa Monica is just a 13-mile bus ride from downtown, and they have learned that the area has more than 20 social services agencies and the beach is relatively safe. Santa Monica itself has shelter for about 100--not nearly enough, according to city officials are seeking funds for more beds.

Gray said Santa Monica’s problems are compounded by the fact that the homeless stand out against the background of the city’s relative prosperity.

Different From Venice

“The reason the problems in Santa Monica are acute is because the fiber and composure of the city is different from what you find in a place like Venice,” Gray said. “The homeless can appear to assimilate in that kind of area. In Santa Monica, seeing homeless people in a park that used to be dedicated to senior citizens is not only shocking, it’s something unusual.”

Dr. Albert-Jan Kettenis, head of the county’s mental health office in Santa Monica, said officials have been discouraged by the results of their efforts.

“Santa Monica is spending more money than most cities and still ending up with quite a problem,” Kettenis said. “Regrettably, their problem is so large that any efforts will not result in an observable decrease.”

As they have elsewhere, street people started gathering in Santa Monica several years ago. Officials say the phenomenon resulted from failures in the nation’s mental health system, cuts in welfare spending and the inability of certain segments of society to find work. Statistics on homelessness have been hotly debated, but federal officials have estimated that there are 32,000 homeless people in Los Angeles County.

Part of the Landscape

Officials in some other communities seem to view the homeless as an immovable part of the landscape, at least until another sociological shift occurs, Gray said. But Santa Monica residents have refused to accept the notion that they can’t do something to get them off the streets.

The homeless were a major issue in the 1984 City Council election. The only challenger to win a City Council seat, Herbert Katz, promised to “get tough” on the homeless.

The problem was further politicized last year, when two councilmen suggested that City Atty. Robert M. Myers should be fired for refusing to prosecute nonviolent vagrants, an action Myers defended on legal and moral grounds.

“For certain offenses, I don’t believe in prosecution. But we have prosecuted people for criminal activity that interferes with people’s rights,” Myers said, suggesting that solutions would more likely be found in improved social services.

By Christmas there were more visible signs of the city’s frustration. In the Third Street Mall, an outdoor shopping area, wood strips called “bum bars” were bolted to benches to prevent homeless people from sleeping there.

Ugly and Inhumane

The bars were removed about a month later after several people complained that the bars were both ugly and inhumane. City officials agreed that the bars were a bad idea and said they were born out of a misunderstanding between the head of the mall revitalization committee and the city’s General Services Department.

Thomas Carroll, executive director of the Third Street Development Corp., said at the time he was shocked by the “god-awful” results.

City Atty. Myers later sued a liquor store owner for reportedly selling alcohol to inebriated vagrants and said he hoped to ban the sale of cheap wines. Myers hopes to accomplish that by an ordinance limiting sales of wines with a high alcoholic content, but the idea has yet to come before the City Council.

The Santa Monica Chamber of Commerce, which had already angered some officials by publishing a pamphlet that instructed people to make citizen’s arrests on panhandlers, took out a large newspaper advertisement imploring officials to give the parks and streets back to the city’s residents.

Business, Tourism

A council hearing that followed in January drew an overflow crowd to City Hall. Among those complaining loudest were businessmen and tourism workers.

Vince Muselli, president of the chamber, said it is obvious that the problem is escalating. The result, he said, could be a serious image problem for a beach community with a fairly prosperous tourist industry.

“We’re concerned about the entire image of Santa Monica,” Muselli said. “We don’t want to be known as the kind of town where you can’t walk through the parks or down the street without being approached by somebody for a handout. But this is the case. This is what’s happening right now.”

Police Chief Keane, however, said Santa Monica remains a relatively safe community. He said police have arrested about 1,500 homeless people in each of the last several years, mostly for alcohol-related offenses. And he said most transient crime is committed against other transients.

And Councilman David Epstein said the whole issue may be overblown.

“If you talk to local officials anywhere in the country, they say that their problems are much worse than anywhere else,” Epstein said. “It’s a general problem. We may have more than our fair share. But I don’t think that there’s anything unique about it.”