City Council Strikes Down Most Staff Ideas for Dealing With Homeless in Santee

The main event at the March 13 Santee City Council meeting was a discussion amongst council, city staff and the public about the rise of panhandling and homeless loitering in Santee. Councilmembers stood their ground and decided to vote against city staff suggestions for curbing homeless problems that would infringe on the freedoms of law abiding citizens.

The staff report (see attached meeting agenda) said there are four types of transient activities that are increasingly causing concern with Councilmembers: Panhandling, overtaking public park areas, riverbed camping and scavenging. The city prefers to refer to those taking part in those activities as "transients," instead of the more vague term, "homeless."

The smoking in the parks debate was re-ignited, with city staff suggesting that banning smoking at city parks would help prevent homeless loitering at parks. 

"Eighteen homeless people will affect the freedoms of thousands," said Mayor Randy Voepel.

His comments reflected the general attitude of the council, which hasn't changed since the last time the smoking issue was brought to council.

Another staff suggestion, putting a weekday restriction on alcohol in city parks, faced similar concerns from council, but in the end they decided to extend the Mast Park weekday ban on alcohol to Town Center Park as well. The consensus was that parks along the river experience more homeless loitering.

The recommendation to ban "single sale" beverages on future alcohol licenses, or even to mimick El Cajon's recent attempts to ban such purchases at currently licensed stores, found no friends in the council.

"If we banned single serving alcohol we would lose thousands in sales tax," said Voepel.

The methods for curbing homeless loitering that council favored were stepped up policing efforts, and amending the soliciting ordinance to prohibit aggressive conduct.

Members of the public spoke to the council about supporting social services that aid local homeless.

"If we can have committees that look at art in parks, we should have one for the homeless," said Santee resident Dawn Gibbs. "This issue isn’t going away and this isn’t how we’re going to solve it."

"Not all of them are troublemakers," said Gene, a Santee resident that also commented on the large amount of trash she picks up on her daily walks through town. “Many of these people have lost all that they have, and they’re forced to be homeless. We are obligated to help these people someway."

The overall reaction of council to these speakers was the belief that most of the homeless in Santee, especially those that live near the river, prefer to be homeless.

"We’re concerned with people that don’t want our help," said Councilmember John Minto.

Mayor Voepel returned to the issue of the city's tight budget and what he believes is the purpose of city government.

"The City of Santee is not in the social services business," said Voepel.

Also read:

• Santee Mayor Volunteers in Annual Homeless Count
• Peter Callstrom: Ignoring the Homeless is Expensive
• Santee's Homeless Debate: A Failure to Communicate