Standards for Homeless
* Vivian Rothstein (“For Their Own Sake and for Ours, the Homeless Must Follow the Rules,” Commentary, Sept. 28) seems to have overlooked a rather important “rule” that must be followed by the housed (including Santa Monica city officials) as well as by the unhoused. It’s called the Constitution and, yes, Vivian, it even applies in far-off Santa Monica! And so, if housed persons can eat in the parks of Santa Monica, so can unhoused persons.
Obviously, advocacy on behalf of the homeless must still focus on the need to provide subsidized housing, job retraining, increased social welfare benefits and the need to restructure a society that creates as much homelessness as does this one. But until such reforms are in place, where would Rothstein have the homeless live and eat and sleep? Having thus far denied the homeless a roof over their heads at night, are we now to deny them even the stars?
Those of us who are challenging Santa Monica’s anti-homeless ordinances in the courts (and those of other local communities) have not stopped advocating for the same sorts of social services Rothstein wants, but in the meanwhile we fight against the criminalizing of the homeless that Rothstein claims to deplore but which is the natural outgrowth of her outdated philosophy.
She decries what she calls “a permissive position regarding encampments, outdoor services and large congregations of homeless people in public places.” Has Ms. Rothstein become so out of touch with present-day realities that she doesn’t realize there are “large congregations of homeless people in public places” for the simple and shameful reason that there are very large numbers of homeless people and that there are insufficient private places for them to go!
JAMES LAFFERTY
Executive Director
National Lawyers Guild, L.A. Chapter
* Rothstein’s piece on the “voluntary homeless” illuminates an important issue. As a downtown loft resident and sometime designer of service facilities for the homeless I have wondered whether I was the only one losing sympathy for this, perhaps most visible, segment of the homeless population.
Given the social services that I know to exist downtown, the street persons with whom I have become acquainted appear to have chosen their lifestyle over one in which they would have to compromise their freedom and frequently, their substance abuse. While we may debate the relative size of this group of “will nots” versus the “have nots” and “cannots” (the mentally ill), and the definitions of these categories, it is important for both homeless advocates and good-hearted citizens to continually question whether their actions are simply enabling the self-destructive behavior of those they seek to help.
DAVID R. WEAVER
Los Angeles
