Heads Should Roll

October 24, 2025

Dear Editor,

It is unbelievable that County Supervisor Lindsey Horvath did not know that there was no community meeting, a state requirement, before the County Mental Health Department approved a grant for 413 and 825 Ocean Avenue, Santa Monica.

Either her staff is lying or is so inefficient it doesn’t keep the boss informed of important happenings in her district. Heads should roll.

The proposed facilities for severely mentally disturbed homeless should immediately be canceled because they don’t belong in a residential neighborhood. The County is seeking to dump more of the Region’s problematic population in Santa Monica.

It has already destroyed Reed Park with its free needle exchange. The Manor, a residential facility for the mentally ill, brought crime and violence to the Pico neighborhood. The Metro train nightly pushes more homeless into the city.

Even with an acquiescent City Council, tiny, dense Santa Monica can’t be the answer to the huge LA Region’s multiple homeless problems.

In past eras, insane asylums were locked and placed in remote areas far from population centers. When drugs designed to ease mental illnesses were developed, governments decided that all patients would religiously follow their medicine regimes and could move into communities in open-door accommodations. Didn't quite work out as expected.

Speaking from his personal experience about operating shared homeless housing in a place similar to the proposed Ocean Avenue project, John Betz has said:

“The cold hard truth is, there is no way to locate a facility like this in a residential neighborhood without inflicting harm on that neighborhood. Period. End of story.”