A Haven for the Homeless: The city of Santa Monica – and its librarians – [tr]

US News & World Report ^ | May 9, 2018 | Elizabeth Segal

[C19fan]

James sat camped outside the main branch of the Santa Monica Public Library on a recent sunny day, his meager belongings in a backpack, and explained how his bout of homelessness started: He fell off the roof of a three-story house.

"I'm from Kentucky. They gave me every drug under the sun – 'You've got to have this the rest of your life,'" the 54-year-old says, a country twang in his gentle voice. "I got addicted to the drugs – all of 'em."

James says he's since gotten off the pharmaceuticals, only occasionally smoking a little bit of marijuana for his chronic pain. He says he's received "plenty of sandwiches" from a local shelter, for which he is "grateful," but that what he's needed for several months is a caseworker – someone to help him get an apartment and a part-time job, which he thinks he can manage.

[C19fan]

This article has a high barf quotient. One might ask, which the US News and World Report failed to, how a guy who was already messed up got from Kentucky to Santa Monica, CA. Most likely he was found by a drug treatment center in CA looking for patients and they paid for him to come to CA. ObamaCare requires equality in benefits for mental, incl drug treatment, and physical aliments. On top of that CA has no minimum residency requirements to enroll in MediCal or ObamaCare plans. So Mr. James arrived in CA and immediately entered a drug treatment center at taxpayer expense. When the benefits ran out they kicked him out and he became homeless. Money quote:

omeone to help him get an apartment and a part-time job, which he thinks he can manage.

How about moving back to KY where housing costs a fraction of what it is in Santa Monica. If you are truly disabled you can apply for disability and a dollar in KY goes a lot farther than in CA.

I heard about the story about a father who was stabbed to death in a Ventura restaurant right near the ocean. When I lived in the LA area I went to that area. The thought the homeless have ruined it makes me mad and glad I left that Leftist cesspool. '

[cicero2k]

Yes, homeless flock to the areas with the best weather because they can.

If you are a worker, you either must be a successful business owner, a professional in a capped industry, a trust baby or be able to endure a painful commute.

Only the wealthy or the poor can live here.

[2ndDivisionVet]

Des Moines is at the junction of I-35 and I-80 so we’d get a lot more transients than most cities of that size. Solution: One-way bus passes to Miami. Worked like a charm.

[mewzilla]

KY might have paid him to leave. NYC has been paying its homeless to move Upstate.

[onedoug]

He’s a bum.

[RetiredTexasVet]

Wow, how Progressive. Probably the only Progressive Ghetto city educating it’s homeless population!

[libstripper]

The technical name for the practice is “Greyhound Therapy.” Of course it doesn’t do much to enhance the attractiveness of interstate Greyhound travel.