What Santa Monica Shows About California’s Homelessness Response | Lana Negrete

Lana Negrete, Santa Monica City Councilwoman, addresses the city's significant homelessness challenge and the steps being taken to address it. She explains that Santa Monica, located in Service Area 5 of Los Angeles County, has become an unintended regional center for homeless services. The city houses the largest concentration of shelters, access centers, and service organizations in the area. The proximity to public transit—particularly the metro terminal—and nearby freeway access has made Santa Monica a destination for homeless individuals from across California and beyond seeking services. Negrete notes that while only 850-1,000 people are counted during the annual January homeless count, daily service usage suggests higher numbers, with many individuals arriving for daytime services and leaving at night.

Under new city leadership—a mayor from Irvine with a clear public safety focus and a police chief with two decades of city experience—Santa Monica has implemented a comprehensive reorientation plan. The police presence in downtown has been doubled, a new substation opened in the Santa Monica Mall to enable faster response times, and a specialized Homeless Outreach Program has been created. Officers have shifted from traditional law enforcement to crisis counseling roles, often being the only human contact homeless individuals receive. The city has also coordinated with the metro system on a memorandum of understanding allowing Santa Monica police to assist on trains and platforms, with plans for taller turnstiles by summer 2027 to prevent fare evasion and funnel non-paying riders to support services.

Negrete emphasizes the distinction between compassion and enabling destructive behavior. She points out that quality-of-life issues—public defecation, indecent exposure, aggressive behavior, drug use—create genuine safety concerns and deter residents from using public spaces and businesses. She cites personal experiences and her music store's vulnerability to theft and customer avoidance due to street conditions. She argues that while homelessness itself should not be criminalized, behavioral violations and criminal activity must be addressed with legal consequences. A new framework makes clear: people won't be arrested merely for being homeless, but crime, drug possession, weapons, and persistent disorderly conduct will trigger law enforcement response.

Regarding housing and services, Negrete criticizes current approaches as insufficient. She notes that the temporary 30-year-old general shelter, serving about 60 beds with only 10% reserved for Santa Monica residents, fails to meet modern standards and that the county relies on Santa Monica to house a disproportionate burden while other cities send residents to Santa Monica or purchase beds there. She questions whether placing severely drug-addicted or mentally ill individuals directly into apartments without intensive inpatient treatment is effective, citing the case of someone who required two years to adjust to indoor living despite not using drugs. She advocates for inpatient treatment facilities and challenges why California doesn't bill other states for serving their homeless populations.

Negrete also addresses the "missing middle"—working-class families like herself who earn too much for affordable housing programs but cannot afford market-rate rents. She discusses how affordable housing development concentrates services in lower-income neighborhoods, creating clusters of people with serious mental health and substance abuse issues near working families. She expresses frustration that the city cannot control where shelters are placed, as private property owners often profit by leasing to nonprofits receiving county funding.

On accountability and program effectiveness, Negrete criticizes the lack of data on outcomes: homeless service providers report numbers served but not whether individuals achieve independence, whether they're repeat visitors, or their long-term status. She advocates for stricter enforcement of existing public conduct laws—no public defecation, no drug use in parks or libraries—and returning to basics: pressure washing downtown every three days, using Chrysalis (employing formerly homeless individuals for street cleaning), and deploying paramedic vans for immediate mental health crisis response.

Finally, Negrete emphasizes the critical importance of local political engagement. She notes that just four council votes out of seven members determine policy for 90,000 residents in an 8-square-mile city, and voter turnout is often under 45%. She positions herself not as a politician but as a public defender and urges citizens to become involved in local governance, recognizing that local action can create pressure on county and state leadership to implement substantive change.