SANTEE COUNCIL TO WEIGH CRACKDOWN ON HOMELESS

March 12, 2013 (Santee) – Santee’s City Council on Wednesday will weigh actions aimed at reducing  activities by the homeless including panhandling, overtaking public parks, riverbed camping and “scavenging” (including taking items from recycling bins). 

The City of Santee has no shelter for the homeless.  The proposals to discourage homeless people from taking up residency in Santee public areas focuses not on providing services to help the homeless, however, but rather emphasizes punitive actions such as banning cigarettes in public parks and alcohol on weekdays, prohibiting single-sale sizes of alcoholic beverages at new businesses, and prohibiting aggressive conduct by panhandlers.

According to a Council Agenda Statement prepared by the City Manager, transients in City parks have been “loitering, smoking, drinking, sleeping, using City electricity for Personal electronics and generally intimidating families…” Other problems include pollution of water and wildlife habitat along rivers and theft of recyclables from bins in the City that “have monetary value.”  Copper wire theft has also been a problem, with wiring found at homeless camps.

The City estimates the prosecution of transient activities total $76,000 a year. 

In 2011, Santee Mayor Randy Voepel criticized the Regional Task Force on the Homeless, disputing its finding that Santee had 58 homeless people. 

”Santee has ALWAYS had 12-15 homeless people (mostly in the River Bottom), this is collaborated by the Sheriff's Department. For you to raise our count to 58, either reflects poor counting methods or cheating. Change your count to reflect reality sir," Voepel wrote in a terse letter to the Regional Task Force on the Homeless. The task force’s director defended the effort to the Santee City Council and invited Mayor Voepel to join the 2012 count, which found 26. The Mayor indicated he was satisfied that the number was accurate.

With no homeless shelters in Santee, the homeless are forced to either leave town for neighboring communities such as El Cajon or San Diego to find shelter and key services, or set up makeshift camps and risk arrest for vagrancy or loitering. 

At a Santee Community Oriented Policing Committee meeting in January 2012, Councilman John Minto suggested that the City should change the law to reflect different classes of homeless, such as those forced into homeless by circumstances rather than those choosing a transient lifestyle by choice. He advocated distributing funds to those most in need, Santee Patch reported.  “"Is there some way to get a discounted camping rate at Santee Lakes for the needy?" Minto asked.