Santa Monica is Now Violating Federal Law and Risking Millions with Inept and Corrupt Homelessness 'Policies'

Dear Mayor Negrete, City Attorney Doug Sloan, and Members of the Santa Monica City Council,

For years, I've been calling out the waste, fraud, and outright cruelty in your so-called "solutions" to homelessness-from the absurdly expensive housing boondoggles to the deadly harm reduction handouts that enable addicts to destroy themselves and terrorize our neighborhoods. Well, the game just changed dramatically, and if you value your reputations (or want to avoid legal nightmares), you'd better pay attention.

President Trump has issued a sweeping executive order titled "Ending Crime and Disorder on America's Streets," and it's a straight-up nail in the coffin for much of what you've been peddling here in Santa Monica. Read it for yourselves-here's the direct link from the White House: https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/07/ending-crime-and-disorder-on-americas-streets/. This isn't some vague memo; it's a comprehensive takedown of the failed approaches that have bloated our budgets, littered our parks with needles, and left overdose victims piling up while you pat yourselves on the back.

Let's start with your precious homeless housing schemes, which gobble up federal dollars like there's no tomorrow. This order pulls the plug on funding for "housing first" policies that pretend homelessness is just about a lack of roofs, ignoring the real culprits: untreated addiction frying brains, mental health breakdowns, and zero accountability. No more blank checks for no-strings-attached setups that doom people to lifelong dependency. Specifically, it ends support for these failed models that deprioritize treatment, recovery, and self-sufficiency-meaning your outrageous $1-2 million per unit "homeless condominium complex" where the old parking structure used to be? Kiss that federal lifeline goodbye. Same goes for the rest of the region's pie-in-the-sky plans, like buying up hotels at inflated prices only to let them sit vacant and rat-infested while homelessness spikes. Billions wasted statewide under Newsom, and now Trump's order ties future grants to actual results: states and cities must enforce bans on urban camping, loitering, and open drug use, or watch the money dry up. Santa Monica's homeless -those fire-starting hazards responsible for 80-90% of our urban blazes-better get cleared fast, or you're cut off.

SM Coalition

Overdose in Palisades Park

And don't get me started on your harm reduction farce. Distributing needles, meth pipes, and other drug paraphernalia to homeless addicts through your partnership with the Venice Family Clinic? That's not compassion; it's complicity in death and disease. Trump's order explicitly bans federal funding for these "harm reduction" or "safe consumption" efforts that just facilitate illegal drug use-calling them out as failures that rack up overdoses (remember, up to 2-3 a day right here in Santa Monica) and turn public spaces into biohazards with HIV-tainted syringes endangering our kids. Even worse, it directs the Attorney General to review whether these programs violate federal law (like 21 U.S.C. 856) and pursue civil or criminal actions against recipients. That means you-yes, the City of Santa Monica-could be on the hook for prosecutions if you keep this up. The order shifts to real solutions: mandatory civil commitment for addicts and the mentally ill, locking them into long-term treatment like I saw transform lives in VA wards, instead of letting them rot on sidewalks.

This isn't optional reading, folks. Ignoring it will lead to massive embarrassment as your pet projects crumble without federal cash, and it opens the door to personal and institutional liability for the harms you've caused-overdoses, crimes, family devastation, all on your watch. You've had blood on your hands for too long, hiding behind photo ops while the Homeless-Industrial Complex lines pockets and our city suffers. Time for accountability: demand independent audits, prosecute the fraud, and pivot to evidence-based, mandatory programs that actually save lives and restore our streets. Or step aside for leaders who will.

Santa Monica deserves better than this perpetual failure. Read the order now, change course, and let's reclaim our city.

Sincerely,

Houman Hemmati