WEEK 4 - Santa Monica
The location I chose for this week was Santa Monica and, again, I travelled from UCLA on the number one bus. This beachside city has become famous for its many attractions and sites which brings tourists from all over. The area is also home to many affluent families and hollywood stars. On arrival in Santa Monica, my excitement towards walking the famous pier and the golden beaches was quickly dampened when something caught my attention. Just off Ocean Boulevard was a wide-open, grass area occupied by a number of homeless people. There was approximately 50 individuals, each person sitting next down guarding all their belonging. The park itself was very clean and well maintained and is very exposed to the on-looking public. There seemed to be an "establishment of a social boundary" which draws attention to the stark contrast in class. (Sibley, 1995) This noticeably distinct containment of the homeless people emphasises the gap in inequality between themselves and on lookers.
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| Figure 1- The contrast between the Tourists and Homeless |
Drawing upon the view of Engels, who believed "brutal indifference and the unfeeling of isolation…becomes more offensive, the more these individuals are crowded together, within a limited space," we notice an example of this in Santa Monica. On either side of the park were tourists, walking with huge shopping bags, enhancing the difference in inequality between the social groups. This stark reminder highlighted the huge difference in class right away; a common trait which is becoming apparent across many other affluent societies in LA.
What I found extremely disturbing was that many police officers were patrolling the area. (Figure 2) They were almost treating the homeless as a threat to other social groups in the area and "criminalising their survival acts." (Johnson, Fitzpatrick, 2009) This is a common topic addressed by many Geographers including Sibley, who discusses social tensions relating to power in urban societies. The constant reference to "threat" across a number of sources is quite shocking. Since the 1990's Los Angeles, along with many other US cities, have attempted to crackdown on homeless people in public areas and are imposing "fortressing" of downtown areas to discourage the homeless from settling here. (Davis, 1990) Many other features within the park implied that the community did not want the homeless locating there. The benches are constructed in such a way that the homeless are unable to sleep on these benches. (See Figure 3)
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| Figure 3-Benches to Prevent Homeless people sleeping |
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| Figure 2-Police Monitoring Area |
One positive I took from this exploration was that there is in fact an organisation in Santa Monica to help the homeless. The OPPC (ocean park community centre) provides care and accommodation for the low-income citizens and homeless. Although many homeless people locate in this area, it is reassuring to know that there are organisations in place to cater for the homeless peoples' basic needs. Furthermore, as the homeless people were amongst other homeless people, they seemed comfortable here. They were able to speak with one another and didn't interact with anyone walking by. It almost felt as though they had accepted their social position and were happy to remain within their social boundary.
-Engels, F (1845) "The Great Towns," from the condition of the working class in England; Oxford University Press.
-Davis, M, (1990) City of Quartz; London: Vintage.
-Sibley, D (1995) "Mapping the pure and defiled, from geographies of difference: Societies and Difference in the West.
I found it really interesting that the subject of focus on your trip to Santa Monica was the homeless population. This location is usually associated with, as you mentioned in the first paragraph, the wealthy and famous, so I thought it was really great that you noticed something that people usually go out of their way to ignore.
ReplyDeleteCurrently, a legal battle is going on "over whether Los Angeles city officials can seize and dispose of the unattended belonging of the homeless"; some are even considering taking the issue to the Supreme Court. This came out of city public health officials discovering hypothermic needles, human waste, and rat infestations on skid row, the few blocks in downtown Los Angeles with the highest concentrations of homeless. I thought this was relevant to your observations in Santa Monica because in both instances, these underprivileged citizens are made to seem like criminals and lesser humans beings. In your case, you mentioned police patrolling the area, as if expecting the homeless to act out. In mine, I think that had the public health officials discovered those things in a nicer neighborhood, they probably wouldn't think to seize all unattended property in the area. It's disturbing how easy it is to think of homeless people's possessions as less valuable and worthwhile than those of the more fortunate. However, as the article points out, "as shabby as those belongings may sometimes look, they often include important personal possessions such as identification documents, medications, family photographs".
There are, as you also mentioned, some positive notes. This issue is causing the city to reconsider how to deal with the large and growing population of homeless people. Instead of wasting time at the Supreme Court, advocacy groups are suggesting smaller measure that make a much more immediate and significant impact. For example, to combat bad sanitation, it can be as simple as encouraging people on the streets to swap old dirty blankets for new ones.
In a city like Los Angeles, a problem like homelessness probably isn't going to go away any time soon, but it's encouraging to know that there are organisations and individuals out there that try and make the lives of the homeless easier, rather than branding them as criminals and menaces to society.