Community, Diversity, Sustainability and other Overused Words
Community, Diversity, Sustainability and other Overused Words
Fentanyl is the drug of choice. It can be purchased within 10 minutes for between $2 and $10.
Woman passed out on the sidewalk
The Safety Ambassadors and the police do not check the stairwells, where many of the unhoused take up residence
Early Friday morning I met an unhoused person charging his phone on the 3rd level of Garage 4. He gave me his permission to record our conversation. We spoke for 40 minutes, sitting between one filthy water drain and a phone charging outlet. His answers and information corroborate my other interviews with the homeless in our garages.
The following is information he volunteered (that we already know) - -
1) Garages 3, 4 and 6 are the places to charge one's phone. Garage 6 is best because all the stairwells have doors they can hide behind
2) The Dumpster Room of Garage 6 is the destination of choice for gay sex
3) Wilshire Blvd, from the Promenade to 6th Street (at 7-11), and along Broadway, from 2nd to 5th Streets, is where female sex workers find most of their business.
4) 90% of the homeless he sees have made their way to the Garages from Reed Park or Douglas Park
5) Fentanyl is the drug of choice. It can be purchased within 10 minutes for between $2 and $10. There is no need to keep much on hand since it is so readily accessible
6) Meth is the second most popular drug, followed by weed. Some combine with a canister of nitrous oxide, which can lead to a deadly overdose
7) There are 'suppliers' who arrive nightly, then sell it to the homeless
8) Many of the homeless carry 6" knives and sticks for protection. Some (including the man I interviewed) carry a gun, and he had used his gun twice in the last 4 months
9) He had not showered in 5 months. He thought the average for most was 3 to 8 months. (This verifies information provided me directly from others in the Garages
10) Floor drains in the Garages are used most of the time to urinate (and end up in our oceans), and Garage stairwells, elevators and alleyways are places used to defecate.
11) Almost every male and female he knows in the Garages is currently suffering from some type of STD
12) (Again, in his words..) most of the Safety Ambassadors will ask them to move away from storefronts, then walk away and let them stay for 6 or 7 hours.
Reader Comments(2)
angeleskid writes:
I've lived here since 1996 and the city has never been in more desperate shape. How you can take a place so naturally gifted, and turn it into the hell-hole that it now is, is beyond me. Santa Monicans for Renters Rights have over a span of decades destroyed the city. Kevin McKeown, now so mysteriously in self-imposed exile retirement, deserves much of the blame (and WHY did he so dramatically disappear---couldn't be a potential blackmail situation, hand in the cookie jar, etc., could it:)? Sue Himmelrich and Gleam Davis and Kristin McCowan now carry the torch of destruction. When citizens have had enough, whenever that is, these people will be voted out of office. I suspect though that things will have to get even worse before that happens. The message from the City Council is toxic, from the top down....like allowing that horrific statue to the homeless at Wilshire and 26th, to be re-erected, after its recent (deserved) vandalism.
01/19/2022, 1:55 pm
Suzieh writes:
John Alle, thank you for your insightful articles. Your suggestions for helping solve the issues in Santa Monica benefit both businesses and those surviving with no housing. You're ideas are progressive and don't just move the problem somewhere else. Keep up your mission. I grew up in Santa Monica but do not live there anymore. It's a beautiful city. I hope you see progress soon.
01/19/2022, 10:35 am