Santa Monica: the good guys on homelessness

Like any smart lawyer, UCLA law professor Gary Blasi hides in his closing sentence the weakness of his July 30 Times Op-Ed article, “ Santa Monica’s homeless headache.” There he concludes that “if” Santa Monica’s alleged mistreatment of homeless individuals is proved, the city ought to do something about its “policies.” Both Blasi and the ACLU (in its lawsuit against the city) get people’s attention by talking about police mistreatment of homeless individuals, but it’s clear the goal is to force Santa Monica to build even more shelter beds to make up for other cities’ failure to do their fair share to reduce homelessness.

The harsh and outrageous fact, as Blasi probably knows, is that Santa Monica’s policies are not the problem. The regional policy toward the homeless in the Los Angeles area is the problem. There are 88 cities in Los Angeles County. Most of these cities do nothing whatsoever for homeless individuals -- no shelter beds, no supportive housing, no veterans facilities. Consequently, homeless people do the smart thing and go to where the services are: downtown Los Angeles’ skid row and Santa Monica.

All of us who live in greater Los Angeles have allowed this shameful reality to continue. It must change. Perhaps litigation can change it.

If so, why sue the good guys?

Santa Monica is a small city that already spends more per capita on homeless services and has more shelter beds per capita than any city in the state; it also has more and better homegrown homeless-service agencies than any city in the state. That’s our policy. Why sue us to build more shelter beds and provide more services? Why not sue the cities doing nothing at all? The suit seems a terrible waste of the ACLU litigating resources and a really terrible waste of resources at the brilliant private law firm joining the ACLU’s complaint.

It goes without saying that mistreatment by the police of any individual is not Santa Monica’s policy, and if any misbehavior is found, it will be fixed. If ACLU attorneys heard of such mistreatment, their first act should have been placing a call to the Santa Monica police, the city manager or any member of our City Council. I can assure you that had I received such a call from my good friends at the ACLU or the assisting law firm, there would have been a prompt, thorough and public investigation. They are well aware of this fact. A lawsuit would not have been necessary.

While Santa Monica is busy addressing any instances of harrasment by the police (and there may be none in this case), perhaps the ACLU and its lawyers could pursue litigation against the cities that do nothing at all for the estimated 74,000 people living on the streets of Los Angeles County. That would be a great use of these distinguished lawyers’ time.

Bobby Shriver is a Santa Monica city councilman.