Groups Oppose Law on Homeless in Park
For over 25 years, the Ocean Park Community Center has been providing crisis and social services to low-income people in Santa Monica.
A unifying thread in the community center’s approach has been respect for clients in crisis and the belief that individuals can and should take control over their own lives. We do not define people by their status (e.g. homeless, poor, battered, abused), but by their hopes for themselves. In each program, clients are expected to behave in ways that enhance their individual progress and respect the needs of others.
The philosophy that informs our service approach leads the OPCC Board of Directors to express great concern about a situation in which some individuals are being punished simply for sleeping in the parks, a violation that arises from their status as homeless people and not from behavior that is willfully harmful to others. The board does not support enforcement of the current ordinance prohibiting sleeping in the park between midnight and 5 a.m., as we believe that criminalization of homelessness is neither a satisfactory nor just answer to the severe national and regional problem we all must confront locally.
At the same time, the board does support enforcement related to behavior that is under an individual’s control (e.g., buying or selling drugs, aggressive or threatening behavior).
Because we understand the difficulty in selective enforcement of ordinances, we believe the Santa Monica City Council and the Santa Monica Homeless Task Force should consider an alternative to the present situation: temporarily rescind the ordinance prohibiting sleeping in the parks until the economic conditions improve and until there is a closer match between need and available social services. At the same time, instruct the police to enforce strictly the laws regarding behavior that is a direct threat to safety or property.
If the police know clearly those laws they are expected to enforce, then they should feel comfortable ignoring non-threatening individuals and aggressively pursuing those who represent a threat to our community.
Homelessness is a difficult and complex social problem, which has been caused by policies beyond our control. We must--as a city, as law enforcement and as a local community--be thoughtful about our responses and model an approach that reflects an intelligent social policy, which speaks to the best in all of us.
SHEILA JAMES KUEHL, Santa Monica. Editor’s note: Kuehl is chairwoman of the Board of Directors at the Ocean Park Community Center.
