Shame on Us: The Breakdown of Our Failing Response to Homelessness and Mental Illness

October 14, 2025

By Mayor Lana Negrete

I am writing this in response to the community outrage surrounding the announcement of 49 beds planned for 413 and 825 Ocean Avenue, funded by the Department of Mental Health through the Behavioral Health Bridge Housing Program grant dollars from the State of California and managed by St. Joseph’s Center.

As someone who lives in Sunset Park, adjacent to the Pico Neighborhood, where three similar facilities already exist within walking distance, I understand the frustration from all sides — those who have never had a voice or opportunity to attend a community meeting, and those who, with greater organization and resources, are now speaking up loudly.

Both perspectives are valid. Both come from lived experience. And both reflect the same failure of process, communication, and transparency that has plagued how we handle one of the greatest crises of our nation -- homelessness, mental illness, and addiction. Shame on us.

Shame on all of us -- for walking past those suffering from mental illness and drug addiction on our streets, for allowing this human tragedy to fester until it became the defining crisis of our time.

When a child is in pain or acts out, parents often ask, “What did I do wrong?” Sometimes it’s trauma we couldn’t see coming. Sometimes it’s just the hand life dealt. But when a whole city, a whole state, is hurting like this, we can’t just say “it’s complicated.”

We have to look inward -- at the layers of government, the policies, and the politics -- and admit that we failed. I am not willing to go along just to get along. I am willing to put myself out there and take misguided anger in the face of transparency.

A System Built on Excuses

I lay blame squarely where it belongs: on elected officials who hold the purse strings and the power but have not built real solutions. We’ve created a tangle of agencies, overlapping jurisdictions, and political finger-pointing so thick that no one is accountable.

Even when we pass propositions or elect a district attorney willing to hold people accountable, we have judges releasing repeat offenders under the guise of reform and compassion. Meanwhile, our streets tell a different story -- one of untreated illness, open addiction, and profound neglect.

Most of the people living unsheltered in Los Angeles County today are not from here. They came because our region --- out of genuine compassion --- built a system of open-ended services but no system of accountability.

The Illusion of Progress

We keep saying the crisis is “complex.” It is, but it’s not mystical. We know what works: We need state-funded hospitals, county-run detox centers, and medical professionals who can treat addiction and psychosis, not just manage it.

We need to recruit the best and brightest students to train in real-world settings -- to learn from and heal those suffering from severe mental illness, not turn away. Instead, we’ve built a multi-billion-dollar “homeless industrialcomplex.”

Tax after tax, proposition after proposition -- the money sounds impressive when announced at a press conference, but by the time it trickles down, it barely wets the edges. The people doing the hardest work -- the nonprofit frontline staff --- are left holding the bag, while developers and consultants profit.

No More Hiding the Ball

This isn’t about left or right, red or blue. It’s about right and wrong. It’s wrong to keep the public in the dark about new shelter projects until after the fact. It’s wrong to cluster those suffering from mental illness in one area without clear communication, a safety plan, or neighborhood input. And it’s wrong for a handful of political insiders to decide what a community can and cannot say without being labeled as “against progress.”

The residents of Santa Monica -- and every city like it -- deserve honest, transparent communication. They deserve to know what kind of facility is being built next door, who’s operating it, and how to contact someone when issues arise. They deserve to feel safe and compassionate at the same time.

A Call for Courage

I was chastised for sharing information that wasn’t confidential but uncomfortable. I was told to stop speaking so openly about the failures in our system. But I will not be silenced. This is a democracy. I was not elected to protect bureaucracy -- I was elected to protect people.

We can’t keep pretending that this is working. It’s not. If we truly want to save lives -- and our cities -- we must rebuild from the ground up: Hospitals before housing. Treatment before tenancy. Accountability before applause.

Our compassion must come with courage, and our policies must come with truth. Because until we stop managing the optics and start managing the problem, we will remain a city -- and a state -- of broken promises and broken people.