Following the recent spate of headlines over homelessness and crime, Mayor Phil Brock joined radio host John Kobylt on air Friday for a discussion of Santa Monica’s homeless situation.
“Santa Monica many time, and it has changed dramatically just in the last five years,” said Kobylt, adding, “There’s nothing compared to the way it was in the mid 20 teens, nothing, the degradation of the Third Street Promenade, of the streets around the Third Street Promenade, Santa Monica place, shopping mall, is astounding. Of the areas the walkways in front of the beach, Palisades Park near the pier, I mean, it is an outdoor insane asylum of every psychiatric patient and predator and drug addict.
“It’s unbelievable, and it wasn’t there a few years ago. So when is your government, you the City Council, the police department, going to get these people out? Beverly Hills doesn’t have this. Manhattan Beach doesn’t have this. Malibu doesn’t have this. It’s not even that way in Pacific Palisades, it’s not this way. In Thousand Oaks, it’s not this way in Irvine, they all live under the same laws. So what’s the problem?” Kobylt asked.
Brock blamed a lack of action by the council at large, laws preventing local action and the ease of travel to Santa Monica.
“They don’t have a light rail line, a freeway, busses all come into their front door. That’s the bottom line,” said Brock. “I love all the cities you talked about. And yeah, they don’t have the concentration of homeless individuals, we have, we get six per hour, six per hour through the metro line. Another 50 to 60. At the end of the line at midnight. Now, these other cities don’t have that.”
Listen to the full conversation online here.
matt@smdp.com