Santa Monica has lurched from crisis to crisis over recent decades, yet one constant has endured: our homelessness epidemic. Approximately 6,000 unhoused individuals cycle through our city annually, with the majority staying less than a month. A RAND Corporation study confirms that most did not become homeless within Los Angeles County, and very few lost their footing in Santa Monica itself. Yet our community — composed of genuinely compassionate residents — has consistently shouldered far more than our fair share of the regional burden.
The nature of homelessness in Santa Monica has changed dramatically over the years. My mother, a Santa Monica lifer, recalled “hobos” congregating near the Pier in the late 1940s, their primary vice alcohol, their presence largely unthreatening. That world is gone. Today’s crisis is driven by drugs of terrifying potency — Tranq, Super Meth, Fentanyl, Nitazenes — and now Cychlorphine, a synthetic opioid reportedly up to twenty times more powerful than Fentanyl, is making its way toward Los Angeles. These substances affect up to 50% of people experiencing homelessness and have produced extreme, often violent behavioral episodes that have left residents feeling unsafe in their own city.
The arrival of the light rail and the COVID-19 pandemic made an already dire situation impossible to ignore. Tongva Park, Reed Park, the southern reaches of Palisades Park, and the boardwalk south of the Pier became encampments housing people in serious, visible distress. The unhoused population — many in urgent need of shelter, mental health care, medical attention, and basic necessities — spread through our streets and alleys, overwhelming city services. On any given night, between 800 and 1,100 unhoused individuals are present in Santa Monica, and our Police and Fire departments have been forced to dedicate enormous resources to managing medical emergencies, aberrant behavior, and crime directly tied to the crisis.
Santa Monica has tried nearly everything. Compassionate meal programs on the City Hall lawn and in Palisades Park. A congregate emergency shelter called Samoshell. Approximately $10 million annually in grants to nonprofit service providers. Los Angeles County has contributed some funding, though it has simultaneously worsened conditions by mandating harm-reduction programs — distributing syringes and pipes in our city parks. At the turn of the century, SMPD attempted to arrest its way out of the problem by targeting drug activity in Palisades Park. It worked — but only displaced the problem to Reed Park.
Innovative programs have followed: SaMo Bridge, STEP Court, the Community Engagement Team, and the Homeless Liaison Program all operate with varying degrees of success. Yet despite increased arrests, constant medical triage, and a growing array of interventions, residents still do not feel safe.
The clearest measure of failure is the decimation of our downtown. For years, city officials looked the other way as homelessness hollowed out our fabled business district. Trust with residents and the retail community has been deeply eroded — and the financial and emotional toll has been enormous. The current City Manager has taken meaningful steps to reverse the damage, persuading the City Council to take urgent action to restore the Promenade and surrounding areas. Encouragingly, the City Manager has proposed closing Samoshell, located at 5th and Olympic, by the end of 2026, with the Downtown Homeless Service Center potentially closing simultaneously. For downtown, this could mean dramatically less visible homelessness and significantly less incentive for unhoused people to travel to Santa Monica specifically seeking services.
Los Angeles City and Los Angeles County are now spending billions on housing, mental health care, and services for the unhoused across the region. It is time for Santa Monica to lean on those county resources rather than continuing to fund parallel systems that strain our budget, deplete our services, and exhaust our residents’ patience.
Yet the city’s transition plan raises serious concerns. Rather than simply closing Samoshell, the city proposes relocating its sixty beds into residential neighborhoods — with the Pico and Sunset Park communities bearing the burden. The first target is the Palm Motel at 2020 14th Street, which has operated as transitional housing for the past two years. The original vision was promising: a carefully screened population of longtime Santa Monica residents experiencing homelessness — people not struggling with active addiction — who would stay up to six months while the County secured permanent supportive housing for them. Meals, mental health services, medical care, security at the entrance, and strict neighborhood protocols were all part of the plan. I personally presented keys to the residents selected for its 36 rooms and listened to their stories. It was a moving experience — but I left worried about the long-term effects on the surrounding neighborhood. Those worries have proven warranted.
The County gradually abandoned its rigorous screening process. Residents were no longer checked for alcohol, drugs, or weapons, and were permitted to come and go freely — an open-access policy that undermined any incentive for residents to pursue sobriety and reintegration. Now the County program is ending, and the City of Santa Monica has decided to operate the facility itself, despite the well-documented struggles of both the City and County to deliver promised results at far greater scale.
Troubling reports have emerged about conditions at the Palm Motel — staff failing to respond to a resident in distress just outside the property line, inadequate neighborhood security, and a general erosion of the promises made to the surrounding community. Elementary and middle schools sit within blocks of the site, and parents are frightened. This fear is not irrational — it is the accumulated product of years of broken promises and deteriorating conditions.
The Pico Neighborhood has carried this burden longest and hardest. For decades, it has absorbed industrial waste, train repair yards, shelters, and supportive housing facilities while watching its concerns go unaddressed. The community’s patience is not inexhaustible, and its grievances are legitimate.
So what should we do?
The Palm Motel presents Santa Monica with a genuine opportunity — if we have the wisdom and political will to seize it. The city should lease the facility and dedicate it to one of three purposeful uses, each far more constructive than simply relocating Samoshell’s population into a residential neighborhood.
The first option is a high-barrier supportive housing facility, modeled on the rigorous, proven standards of the Salvation Army, Midnight Mission, or Union Rescue Mission. No drugs, alcohol, or weapons would be permitted. Residents would observe a no-exit policy for the first thirty days, during which intensive medical and mental health counseling would be provided. A guaranteed permanent housing placement outside of Santa Monica within six months, zero tolerance for misconduct, and cooperative job training would form the backbone of the program. This is compassion with accountability — the only kind that produces lasting results.
The second option is reduced-cost housing for Santa Monica College students living on the financial edge. These are young people who desperately want to build a future but lack the stability to do so. Providing affordable housing and free textbooks at the Palm would be a direct, tangible investment in our city’s next generation.
The third option — and in my view the most compelling — is to revive the foster youth program that once operated on Bay Street through the YMCA. That program gave young women aging out of the foster care system two years of housing at no cost, free tuition and books, mental health counseling, job training, and the space to begin healing from years of trauma. The statistics surrounding foster youth who age out of the system at 18 are devastating: nearly 20% become homeless almost immediately. Fewer than 3% will ever earn a college degree. An estimated 7 out of 10 foster girls will become pregnant before the age of 21. Roughly 25% are diagnosed with PTSD. These are not abstractions — they are young people in our community, failed by a system that simply stops caring when they turn 18. Reviving this program at the Palm Motel would address a profound and largely invisible need, both in Santa Monica and throughout Southern California.
It is time to listen.
On July 16, the Pico Neighborhood Association and Friends of Sunset Park held a spirited open forum to discuss the proposed placement of supportive housing in their communities. By one count, 176 residents showed up — and they were emphatic in their opposition to more disruption in their neighborhoods. Many left feeling that city staff heard their words but not their message.
That has to change.
Santa Monica’s compassion is real, and it is earned. But compassion without accountability, and generosity without boundaries, has brought us to this breaking point. Our residents have been patient, engaged, and persistent. They deserve a city government that listens — not selectively, not performatively, but genuinely and with the intention to act.
Our stakeholders deserve a city that hears them and stands behind them. It is long past time to deliver exactly that.
Phil Brock, Santa Monica Mayor (ret.) for Santa Monica Architects for a Responsible Tomorrow
Dan Jansenson, Architect (former Building & Fire-Life Safety Commissioner); Robert H. Taylor, Architect AIA; Mario Fonda-Bonardi, Architect AIA (former Planning Commissioner); Sam Tolkin, Architect (former Planning Commissioner); Michael Jolly ARE-CRE; Jack Hillbrand AIA, Landmarks Commission Architect; Phil Brock (SM Mayor, ret.); Matt Hoefler, Architect NCARB; Charles Andrews, columnist. journalist; Bruce Leddy, Human Services Commissioner & NOMA Co-Chair.
