Editor,
Reading comments in the media, made in reaction to the ACLU’s recently filed lawsuit, is disappointing even if predictable. It appears that a citywide, civil conversation, once again, is out of the question. For every person who finds Laguna’s treatment of the five disabled, poor, unroofed plaintiffs “shocking” there are several who either have concluded that taking offense best works for them, or worse, suggest a criminal course of action to relocate the “problem”.
John Pietig, the city manager, has commented on the suit but his sundry remarks are at best unenlightening. Consider his assertion that “no single public entity can solve the issues associated with homelessness.” How does this statement advance the conversation? It is at best misleading, maybe even deceitful, when applied to Laguna. Recall that:
- Two city-sponsored groups, recently referenced by Pietig, after two years of public meetings on homelessness in Laguna, meetings attended by Pietig, unanimously concluded that the solution to homelessness was permanent supportive housing.
- Now, according to Friendship Shelter, all the pieces to implement that solution are in place, save for the action of but a single public entity; the City of Laguna Beach.
Pietig hasn’t raised a single data-driven point in opposition to either the conclusion that the solution is permanent supportive housing, or to the fact that it is only the lack of local political will that prevents the solution from being realized. Rather, ignoring the facts in front of him he utters what in our context is irrelevant and distracting, revealing ignorance, bias or both.
He doesn’t even bother to deny the assertions of mean-spirited behavior against disabled residents that are described in the suit. Rather, he asks to be excused for these cruel acts because the city spends money on the operation of the ASL.
Pietig needs to be reminded that people, including disabled residents, are rather more than numbers in a budget. That city funds are spent in operating the shelter does not give Pietig or anyone else a license to trample on the statutory or Constitutional rights of anyone, housed or homeless, sleeping in the ASL or in the sand. How could he have lost sight of that?
Further, Laguna chooses to spend what it does on the operation of the ASL. It has been public knowledge for more than 10 years that it costs materially more to keep, for example, Katrina Aune, on the street than it would cost to provide her housing. Thus, the issue is not financial but a question of values and, this City devalues the chronically homeless. Keep your damn money and let the disabled poor be provided for!
Finally, for now, Pietig states that the 45-person capacity of the ASL was based on “historical estimates of the homeless community.” Those regularly involved with the local homeless five to 10 years ago knew then that the population count was being materially underestimated and would leave numbers of people on the street at night. That has been the case from the opening of the ASL and continues to date; as evidence, just look at the historical counts for meals served at the ASL. The current discussion is occurring when the latest monthly average of meals served approaches 70 per night. It seems to me that choice of 45 was evidence of ill will not of a compassionate community.
James Keegan, Laguna Beach
So we didn’t give the petulant meddlers who like keeping people as pets at the friendship shelter what they asked for so they come up with this lawsuit.
My goodness, where to begin with your hair-raising comment, Mace? If you read up and understand the history of this issue, it makes a good point.
The city is being sued for not doing what it said needs to be done: the last of the 14 recommendations made by its own Homeless Task Force and adopted, unanimously and enthusiastically, by the city council in January 2008. Predictably, implementation lagged, and we have been stuck in this same fear-based cycle since 2009, because painting parking meters with cartoon octopus to collect spare change to supposedly discourage panhandling is easy. Stepping up and mounting an effort to end homelessness for the most vulnerable in our community with supportive housing is the tough one, the one the city doe not want to do and is willing to go to the mat to fight – even though it agreed to via its own committee. Even though a well-run, established, trusted non-profit in town has offered a pretty fleshed-out plan to take it off the city’s hands and make it happen once and for all. By the way, it’s important to note that despite what the conspiracy theorists are saying, this is not a Friendship Shelter lawsuit. They don’t sue, they aren’t a shadow organization that calls in the ACLU to sue – they just don’t do that sort of thing – ask anyone familiar with the organization.
There are those in town, James Keegan included, who are fed up with the city’s inaction and backpedaling on this topic. The flaws in the city’s much-touted “solutions” for our homeless are evident and perfectly illustrated by a visit to the city’s own ASL parking lot, where at least a dozen or more people are living full-time without running water or toilets. They use the ASL as their home base, but its doors are locked after breakfast and don’t reopen until dinnertime. This is the problem the lawsuit seeks to correct via the 5 disabled plaintiffs who have had their statutory and Constitutional rights trampled.
Don’t buy the city’s lie that they are doing all they can. Or that Laguna Beach is the “only” town that does this much. Several other Orange County communities are recognizing that the data shows that it costs 47% more to leave a person on the street than it does to house him and provide ongoing help so he can, with an array of supportive efforts consistently applied, can begin to unravel the bundle of whatever his (or her) problems may be. So even if you view homeless human beings as animals, as you intimate, (which is your view, not anyone else’s), supportive housing is a money-saver.
Please go out to 20652 Laguna Canyon Road and take a look at the city’s parking lot, then tell me this is the best an affluent community such as ours can do.The ACLU is simply reminding the city, through legal means, to quit playing on the emotions of residents and business owners by making “the homeless” into an ever-multiplying bogeyman, and to simply make good on its promises.