This past week, Q-line asked:
The ACLU filed a suit last week claiming City Hall violated constitutional rights by arresting a group of six plaintiffs for breaking a local law against camping when there is a lack of sufficent shelter beds to accomodate the homeless. What do you think of the ACLU’s lawsuit?
Here are your responses:
“The ACLU is notorious for stirring the pot on all kinds of trouble-making issues. Santa Monica is overloaded with indigents and bums, who I constantly have to walk around and sidestep, for they’re sprawling on our streets and sidewalks. The laws are there to try to help the citizens a little bit. These bums and vagrants are constantly pushing the envelope. They need to abide by the law or pay the penalty, like everyone else. But the ACLU smart asses probably will win. They are way too powerful.”
“Constitutionally, the United States of America is a government of the people, and the people have a right to enjoy the common areas of our great nation as long as they behave. State, county and municipal statutes affecting the common areas must have constitutional soundness and they’re often put to the vote of the people. The ACLU is there as a watchdog to make certain this process of the government is followed. I am pleased that the ACLU is looking into this camping issue.”
“Because we have been turned into a giant tourist trap by our Santa Monicans for Renters’ Rights run city, we get a large influx of tourist transients and bums, especially in the summer, and we couldn’t possibly house all these people in shelters. It’s nice we offer shelters, but it shouldn’t be mandatory that we taxpayers house everyone for free. The homeless are supposed to obey all the same laws as everyone else, nor be subjected to police harassment just because they’re unshaved or not wearing the newest fashions.”
“Maybe the ACLU case, the latest nightmare involving the ‘homeless,’ will help to get Santa Monica out of the thriving, yet horrendous for the citizens, homeless business. Let us only hope so.”
“Yes, I think it’s totally ridiculous that these miscreants arrested these people. I’m an ex-landlord in the city of San Malicious, and I remember giving a garage to people that needed help, because I was also the ex-captain of a feeding group that would give food to the homeless.”
“The ACLU ought to crawl back into the hole it came out of. The only judge that would make a favorable ruling on this frivolous lawsuit would be Sotomayor. Thankfully, she’s busy elsewhere.”
“The ACLU is just in it for the publicity. They care little about the bums. Of course, if they like the bums so much, they (the homeless) ought to camp on the lawns of the people running the place (the ACLU). The ACLU people can have the bums, because nobody else wants them, and we sure as heck don’t.”
“I sure do, and I pray that they win, too.”
“I do believe the ACLU has a case, but I also believe that it’s very interesting that they don’t file lawsuits against Beverly Hills or Malibu, who have no shelters. Santa Monica should respond by closing their Samoshel shelter, which was opened in 1994 as a temporary shelter and, 15 years later, is still open. By the way, it’s also located on bus yard property that was used with MPA money, and is not being used for transportation. The city has never paid the MPA back for that money.”
“I think it’s like Nazi Germany to arrest people for being homeless. Many people are homeless. I remember World War II in Europe, living among the rubble, and these people were never arrested. What you’re doing is arresting people for their terrible tragedy and illness. I think this is the bottom of cruelty.”
“The homeless are human beings, and if the government cannot give them a shelter, they have the right to survive and the right to sleep wherever they can find a place to sleep. It is not their fault if a person is homeless or has no shelter. There are not enough shelters. We are spending too many billions on war and other things, and we need this money to help people who are very poor.”
“No good deed goes unpunished. What did you expect from the ACLU? They make their money by suing. They are extortionists. It’s part of doing business in this town, just like a third-rate Banana Republic. The ACLU is just another organization making a good living off the bumsters. Build it and they will come — except build it in Riverside. Send all the bums there with their dogs, shopping carts, and the ACLU, helping to make license plates. Come to think of it, get the bums on the City Council to go there too — now there’s a task worthy of the ACLU.”
“The ACLU lawsuit is an abuse of the legal system. The homeless in Santa Monica were not evicted from a Santa Monica apartment, nor are they homeless due to the foreclosure of their Santa Monica homes. They are here due to Santa Monicans Renter’s Rights giving away millions of our tax dollars to social service providers, which constitutes a magnet for L.A. County’s homeless. The ACLU should have sued Rolling Hills Estates, Bradbury, La Cañada, San Marino and Beverly Hills. Those wealthy cities provide little or no homeless services and little or no low-income rental housing.”
