POLICE
CRACK DOWN
ON
DANA POINT
HOMELESS

(CNS) DANA POINT-- According to Dana Point Police Services Chief (Rent-A-Sheriff) Lt. Paul Ratchford, this last week the city's bicycle police instigated a crack down on homeless people in Dana Point. Using the old ruse that the police received complaints from "anonymous citizens," police invaded the last refuge of the homeless, and read them the riot act. By beefing up the bicycle patrols, deputies are able to get into areas where police riding in cars are unable to go. "There are a lot of people living in the parks, and they have been rousting those guys."

The police are quick to assert that the beach cities are magnets for transients in the hot summer months, but they dismiss the fact that the majority of homeless are from the local area, and are not genuine transients. However, even the police have to acknowledge that the homeless make up a spectrum of people from all walks of life, because the evolution of the homeless problem is symptomatic of real deep flaws in the economic system, and is not the product of lazy or bad people. "We have young ones and old ones who are homeless for various reasons. Some are drunks or drug addicts, but others are mentally ill. Some of them don't want to work, some of them can't work. Each one is different and we deal with each of them differently."

Chief Ratchford said that the number of homeless cases has increased this summer. He believes that this is because the police are detecting them better, because they are able to get into the remote areas where the homeless set up camps. The homeless avoid residential neighborhoods, going instead to creekbeds and railroad tracks, places that can be very dangerous, especially in bad weather. In fact, in Malibu, several years back, when it flooded there were several homeless washed out to sea, who were camped out in a local creekbed.

Dana Point has never acknowledged that it has a homeless problem that it should address. When the Mildred Rose Memorial Foundation set up a non-profit shelter on Olinda Drive, in 1991, the city engaged in illegal actions to close it down. Spending tax money on shutting down a service necessary for addressing the homeless crisis, instead of spending it on the service, to make it as effective as possible. But the city refuses to recognize the real nature of this problem. The homeless represent an out of control situation; the fastest way to bring it into control is to set up a service, that actually channels the homeless into a system that minimizes the harm they might do. The homeless don't live in dirty mud camps because they want to; they do it because there is no real alternative. Yet in a camp out in the wilderness, the comings and goings of the individuals there are unknown, and unaccounted for. Whereas in a well-run program, each homeless individual's whereabouts are accounted for.

Additionally, it makes perfect sense for a city to outlaw panhandling, if police can direct offenders to a program or service that will help them, so that panhandling is unnecessary. But it is cruel to outlaw the sole source of sustenance for the dirt poor, without providing some kind of alternative. The City of Dana Point has spent more on studies than it has on human beings in Dana Point. The fact that Dana Point does not have a homeless shelter is a scandal. Dana Point's own sons and daughters are literally orphaned by their own community. And now with police crack downs, it is the bottom of the barrel of pure immorality.

At the same time that this crack down is taking place against the most defenseless and powerless individuals in Dana Point by police, the City is planning to spend tax money on a big party to celebrate the tenth year anniversary of the incorporation of Dana Point. Ingrid McGuire, a member of the city's first city council (the one that approved the General Plan, that would have completely smothered the Headlands with concrete), suggested the city plan to commemorate its "history." Mayor Ossenmacher was quick to note that Ms. McGuire is presently the only person from that first city council who still lives in the city. The mayor went on to speculate: "That makes me wonder what that means where we are heading when we're gone (from the city council)." Everyone realized as Ossenmacher was speaking, that lame duck Lloreda was now heading in that same direction, having announced that she will not press her luck, and run again for re-election.

The Council put off discussing the financial cost of the extravaganza, but planners are already discussing whether the "celebration" should run one day, or extend throughout the year. This in a city that is spending valuable resources avoiding the homeless problem, instead of resolving it. City of Dana Point: HAVE YOU NO SHAME?

SOURCE: Information for this article was derived from the Sheriff's Blotter of the Dana Point News, 27 August, 1998.

(DANA POINT ON-LINE EDITOR: Anyone tempted to disclaim any responsibility for his fellow human beings with the Biblical passage, "I am not my brother's keeper," should be reminded that this quote is from the murderer Cain, who has just been asked by God where his brother Abel is.)


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