A Witness to Uncivil Behavior

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Editor,

I support the unanimous decision of the Laguna Beach City Council to fight this law suit, to clean up Laguna Beach and make our streets and beaches safe again.

Please check the weekly police blotter in our local newspapers; the majority of infractions list the perpetrators with no known address.

My office is across the channel from the bus stop.  My staff and visitors witness firsthand the lewd acts, public urinating, yelling using foul language and harassment of visitors and residence on a daily basis by homeless individuals. They occupy the shaded benches for hours with bags and suitcases strewn out taking up all available seating areas.  Panhandling, illegal smoking of cigarettes in posted no-smoking areas, drinking alcohol and smoking marijuana are daily activities witnessed by passersby and from our office windows, and the litter and food left behind attracts flies, rats and other vermin.

Chris Gallo, Laguna Beach

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2 COMMENTS

  1. You are indeed at ground zero for witnessing the worst of these behaviors, Chris. It can’t be pleasant for you and your employees, agreed. However, before you support the City’s fight against the ACLU, notice what it really means. It means that the City prefers to keep things the way you see them. The ACLU’s effort is to change the situation, help the longest-term chronically homeless people who you see around town (note that they are not the bus depot troublemakers) and reduce the toll that homelessness takes on us all.

    The City throws money at the problem of homelessness even as data mounts proving that supportive housing – the crux of this lawsuit – is the real answer, and costs 47% less per individual. We as a community of compassionate citizens do all we can to help people, it’s true, but the government is using divisive language to tell us that if we “fall” for this “trick,” we will be on the hook to hand out free apartments to anyone who comes asking. This is a lie and the City knows it. The City itself, in the form of its Homelessness Task Force, adopted 14 recommendations and admirably acted on everything but the toughest – supportive housing. It’s easy to paint parking meters and put them out to discourage panhandling. It’s hard to say yes to putting ill people under a roof and allow them to be provided supportive services so they might recover or at the very least, live in a place with a toilet and running water. The City was offered that very solution by an established, professional, well-run nonprofit, Friendship Shelter, but the City lost its nerve and shined them on. Friendship Shelter did not initiate this lawsuit, and is in no way a party to it, for the record. That’s not how they roll.

    I have to ask you, Chris: have you been to the City-owned ASL parking lot in the canyon? At least a dozen or more people live there full-time, under tarps and umbrellas, with no running water or toilets. This is the best our City can do? The government needs to stop dividing us through lies about who would be helped and how. John Pietig knows that the ACLU is talking about 5 mentally ill plaintiffs who have for years been ticketed and harassed – not every backpacking drifter.

    Chris, I would encourage you to notice the common ground there might be in creating permanent housing for the long-term homeless of Laguna, which would allow enforcement to gain further clarity on who’s in town and their intentions while quite literally saving the lives of disabled people. You read in the police log about calls when the law is broken by a “no fixed address” person, but you don’t hear about the illnesses and deaths that occur in the ASL parking lot to those who aren’t causing trouble at the bus depot. That is who the ACLU is seeking to aid.

    We can and must do better. I encourage you to examine the facts (start by Googling “supportive housing”) and look deeper into the possibilities if the City quits fighting its own recommendation and takes action.

  2. I think that the solution to housing is not a one size fits all, we need a temporary housing facility that is in town so the need for buses is eliminated and they are closer to services, we need individual permanent housing , small home housing groups etc. I also feel that we should NOT use any federal funding because if we do then anyone in the country can get on the list and take the housing spot that a local would have used. Food for thought.
    Roberta Kansteiner

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