Homeless Need Action, Not Words

I would like to respond to the article, “Homeless-Issues Coordinator Named” (July 1), regarding the appointment of Maria Mendoza. First off, I have been active helping homeless people since 1981, and, locally, I have been active since 1989. I have worked with several local nonprofit groups as a volunteer, and I also founded the Mildred Rose Memorial Foundation, which operates a halfway house for the homeless in Dana Point.

I do not know Ms. Mendoza personally, so I have no desire to impugn her honor; however, I am not convinced that her appointment will result in one iota of progress toward dealing with the homeless crisis of Orange County.

The creation of blue-ribbon panels to study problems receives media attention, but then the only action that occurs is a bunch of well-paid, college-educated, middle-class bureaucrats get together on a regular basis to discuss the issue of homelessness.

Maybe some small amount of money will “trickle down” into a few well-connected, high-profile charities--where it is “absorbed” into staff costs like salaries and pensions--but the overall conditions are never affected by high-level paper-pushers.

I challenge the county to stop playing games and to get serious about confronting this crisis. Already the government has lost control of the streets; by keeping its head in the sand, it’s not going to regain control. I predict that the Homeless Issues Advisory Committee will amount to a colossal waste of money and time, while human lives are wasted by virtue of neglect. This neglect has criminal overtones, even if the neatly pressed bureaucrats are legally free of liability under technicalities that defy moral boundaries.

If the Mildred Rose Memorial Foundation Inc. had the resources available to it that the Social Services Agency, the Health Care Agency, the Environmental Management Agency and the Community Services Agency waste annually, there would be no homeless crisis in Orange County.

This is not a vague, ambiguous promise based on imagined conditions; this is an ironclad guarantee based on firsthand knowledge of an eyewitness to the homeless crisis from San Diego to Seattle.

I challenge the government to govern.

MARC ERIC ELI-CHAITLIN, Dana Point