The Long View of Homeless Myopia
* Your editorial “Myopic Action on Homelessness” Dec. 18) is myopic indeed!
Consider the implications and probable consequences of your position that “Santa Ana should be ready to act on its own even if other cities do not join in.”
That means Santa Ana should be ready to accept responsibility for housing the entire homeless population! And not just those within our city limits today, but any who arrive in the future. At any time! From any place!
Santa Ana is a compassionate city, but our resources are limited. What are you thinking about, except yourselves, and how to avoid sharing the responsibility for solving this pernicious social problem? You, who live everywhere except here in Santa Ana!
Suppose unlimited numbers--hundreds, even thousands--of homeless started living and sleeping on The Times’ grounds (the only reason they don’t, you know, is because it’s private property!)?
How would you house them? Feed them? Clean up after them? Protect yourself against their verbal harassment and even the physical danger posed by those disgruntled and mentally and emotionally impaired individuals, some intoxicated, and many under the influence of other drugs? Would you subject your employees and visitors to such conditions? Of course not.
But employees in public service and individual citizens are subjected to those conditions every day just in order to work in the Civic Center area, or to conduct business in governmental offices!
And what you are suggesting would make it infinitely worse; we might as well erect our own “Santa Ana Statue of Liberty” proclaiming, “Send us your poor, your hungry, your homeless. . . .” I’m sure every other city and community in this country would be glad to ship them all to Santa Ana!
Citizens, hear me: Homelessness is not just Santa Ana’s problem; it is society’s problem. And we’ve got to solve it as a society. Santa Ana, Costa Mesa, Newport Beach, Corona del Mar, Tustin, Orange, Villa Park, Anaheim . . . every city, every community committing its intellectual, physical and financial resources, working side by side to find acceptable solutions.
But that’s not going to happen until individuals and institutions like The Times stop trying to shove society’s problem onto Santa Ana’s shoulders and start sharing the responsibility for solutions.
CATHERINE C. CATE
Santa Ana
