Sensible Santa Monica

Enforce the public spaces. Then shelter, or move on.

The plan is five planks. Housing and shelter matter as the place a person is directed when a rule is enforced. They are not a substitute for the rule.

No sleeping or camping in parks or on the beach.

That is the rule we want, consistently enforced. It is not fully the rule today. Ordinance 2804 bans camping in tents and temporary shelters in public places, including parks and the beach. Sleeping in public is not illegal, and a bedroll is not evidence of camping. The council repealed that evidence rule on March 11, 2025, 6–0, with Negrete absent, and its findings called the rule “an ineffective tool.” Ordinance 2804, March 11, 2025

Parks already close overnight: 11 p.m. to 6 a.m., and midnight to 5 a.m. at Palisades Park. SMMC 4.55.120 A nighttime beach curfew was requested in April 2025 and was not adopted. The Coastal Commission had indicated a total closure would not be allowed. Santa Monica Daily Press, April 2025 Ordinance 2854 does ban sitting or lying, from 6 a.m. to 1 a.m., on downtown, Main Street, and Montana sidewalks. Ordinance 2854, April 14, 2026

What we are asking

Enforce park-closure hours every night, including at Palisades Park.
Enforce the ban on tents and other temporary shelters in parks, on the beach, on the Pier, and in other public places. Warnings can come first. The outcome is shelter or move on, not another night in the same place.
Pursue an overnight beach rule the Coastal Act allows. Do not promise a total closure the Coastal Commission has already signaled it would reject.
Keep the sidewalk rule in Ordinance 2854, and apply it consistently in the zones it names.
Publish citations and arrests under the camping ordinance and the park-closure rules. Those counts are not in any public report we could find.

Enforce fare evasion on the Metro E Line.

The E Line ends at Downtown Santa Monica. Metro’s 2023 study found an average of 59 unhoused people leaving the last trains there each night. A March 2025 count found 63. Metro board file 2023-0214 Metro board file 2025-0219 Metro says that up to 94% of people arrested for violent crime on its system had no valid fare. Metro, Aug. 2024

TAP-to-Exit has been in place at Downtown Santa Monica since September 3, 2024. Metro later reported an 83% drop in security issues at the station during a period when other pilots were paused. Taller fare gates were tentatively set for November 2025 and have slipped to mid-2027. Metro, Aug. 2024 Metro board file 2025-0567 Santa Monica Daily Press, Sept. 23, 2026

The Sheriff’s Transit Services Bureau patrols the stations. Contract security works the downtown gates. Santa Monica authorized its own agreement on March 24, 2026, by a 7–0 vote. It was still unsigned on September 23, 2026. Santa Monica Daily Press, Sept. 23, 2026 Council minutes, March 24, 2026

What we are asking

Sign the SMPD–Metro agreement and use it. Santa Monica police should enforce fares and the code of conduct at Downtown Santa Monica, 17th Street/SMC, and 26th Street/Bergamot.
Accelerate taller fare gates at Downtown Santa Monica. Mid-2027 is a slip from a November 2025 schedule, not a reason to wait.
Publish station-level fare citations and how many end-of-line riders are still in the city after the morning reboard. Across end-of-line stations, 77% of people surveyed reboard in the morning. Santa Monica does not have its own series for who stays. Metro board file 2025-1031

Regional fairness at the end of the line.

Santa Monica should not be where the region’s street homelessness arrives with no plan and no share of the responsibility. Two channels are documented.

First, Metro empties trains at the end of service, including at Downtown Santa Monica. The nightly last-train counts are above. Most people surveyed at end-of-line stations reboard in the morning, so the station is also a shelter loop. The city still receives that loop every night, and nobody publishes how many people remain. Metro board file 2023-0214 Metro board file 2025-1031

Second, the county sites programs here. On October 27, 2025, Supervisor Horvath terminated two interim projects on Ocean Avenue over a lack of transparency. Supervisor Horvath, Oct. 27, 2025

The last city origin survey is from 2018, and it is old: 44% of people counted had come from elsewhere in Los Angeles County, 32% from out of state, and 27% had been in Santa Monica less than a month. City of Santa Monica, March 7, 2018

We are not asserting that hospitals or other cities bus people into Santa Monica. We did not find a documented case. RAND reported that Beverly Hills and Culver City officials said they are more inclined to move people out of commercial districts, and RAND said it could not verify that. We do not treat it as fact. Santa Monica Daily Press, Oct. 1, 2026

What we are asking

Treat the E Line terminus as a Santa Monica public-safety problem: fare enforcement, the signed police agreement, and a published count of who remains after morning reboarding.
Require notice and a local vote of confidence before the county sites a new interim facility in Santa Monica, and a county share of the operating responsibility that matches the siting.
When enforcement moves someone along, the direction is a shelter bed or out of the public space. It is not a shuffle to the next park.

Follow Manhattan Beach and Beverly Hills.

Both cities ban camping in public and have very low street counts. Per 10,000 residents, calculated from 2026 counts and 2020 Census population, Beverly Hills is about 10 and Manhattan Beach about 2.5. Santa Monica is about 77. LAHSA tract file, 2026 U.S. Census Bureau, 2020 Census City of Santa Monica, July 24, 2026

Do not hide the latest year. Beverly Hills rose from 17 in 2025 to 32 in 2026. Manhattan Beach rose from 4 to 9. The bases are very small, so the jumps are noisy, and both cities remain far below Santa Monica per resident. Neither has a Metro terminus or a regional shelter comparable to Santa Monica’s. LAHSA jurisdiction file, 2025 LAHSA tract file, 2026

Low counts cannot be credited to enforcement alone. The pattern that is on paper is a citywide ban, an offer of shelter, and then enforcement, plus — in Beverly Hills — real spending. That is the standard. It is not a claim that a press release clears a beach.

Beverly Hills

Beverly Hills Municipal Code 5-6-1502 makes it unlawful to camp, occupy camp facilities, or use camp paraphernalia in any park, any street, or any city-owned parking structure. Beverly Hills Municipal Code 5-6-1502 The city directs police to offer services or shelter before citing or arresting a person who appears homeless. City of Beverly Hills, Homeless Services

Staffing, from the city’s own FAQ: a Beverly Hills Outreach Team of 5 people, run by Step Up on Second, seven days a week; a Mental Health Evaluation Team of 2 police officers plus a county clinician; park rangers and ambassadors; Nastec Security on the overnight and weekend hotline; and Fire Department nurse practitioners. Beverly Hills homelessness FAQ

Spending that is on the record: a Step Up contract of $14,177,026, approved August 15, 2023, for 30 permanent supportive housing units and 280 motel stays a year over 10 years. A March 18, 2024 plan added about $1 million, including $530,000 for Nastec transport and about $120,000 for outreach. Outreach contacted 1,582 people in a year. The city counted 31 people as permanently homeless in Beverly Hills at that time, and 14 of 30 units were occupied. Beverly Press, March 2024 The city also funds $45,000 a year to All Saints’ Church for transit cards to downtown Los Angeles shelters, plus a Home Again bus and air program. City of Beverly Hills, Homeless Services

The police department’s budget is reported at $117 million. The police union says 159 sworn positions are funded and 131 are filled. Beverly Press, August 2025

Beverly Hills’ own FAQ, written while the old Ninth Circuit rules still applied, says hiring more police is not the solution to ending homelessness and describes a housing-first approach. Beverly Hills homelessness FAQ We are not pretending the city is enforcement with no services. We are pointing at the ban, the offer-then-enforce practice, the staffing, and a per-resident count far below Santa Monica’s.

Manhattan Beach

Ordinance 18-0020, Municipal Code chapter 4.140, passed unanimously on September 4, 2018. It bans camping on public property. A violation can be charged as a misdemeanor or an infraction. The city said it would enforce only when shelter had been arranged and refused. Manhattan Beach has no shelter of its own. Police transport people to regional shelters outside the city. Patch, Sept. 2018 Easy Reader

Outreach is thin on paper: one Harbor Interfaith outreach and navigation worker, on a contract capped at $90,413 a year from December 1, 2024, through November 30, 2026. The worker coordinates with the city’s homelessness liaison and the police department and reports monthly. Manhattan Beach, Harbor Interfaith contract

The 2026 count is 9, up from 4 in 2025 and 4 in 2024. Three of the nine are people and six are dwellings. None were in a shelter in the city. LAHSA tract file, 2026 LAHSA jurisdiction file, 2025

A limit on the claim

Enforcement has a record of reducing visible camping in the places it targets. It has not, by itself, been shown to cut a whole city’s homeless total. San Diego’s city auditor found that the unsheltered population did not decrease citywide after the 2023 Unsafe Camping Ordinance, while the number of people living in public areas and downtown did fall. San Diego City Auditor, April 2026 Santa Monica’s ask is the public spaces residents share: parks, the beach, sidewalks in the zones already named, and the Metro terminus.

Measure the results, and hold the council to its votes.

A lower point-in-time count is not, by itself, a policy. Santa Monica’s 2026 count fell while the tools for camping enforcement were narrowed. The next numbers have to be published often enough that a vote has a consequence.

What we are asking

Publish, on a fixed schedule, the street count, camping and park-hour enforcement, end-of-line arrivals who remain in the city, and the share of arrests and calls involving homelessness.
Publish a current cross-department spending total. The last one on the record is $42.5 million for FY 2020–21, including $25.4 million in public safety. Santa Monica Daily Press, Oct. 1, 2026
Record the votes. The March 2025 repeal, the April 2026 sidewalk rule, and the still-unsigned Metro agreement are the baseline. The votes we have are listed here.
Do not wait on Measure A. The county’s FY 2027–28 scenario is about $705 million expected against $780 million in costs. LA County HSH, Sept. 8, 2026
In the election cycle after November 2026, Sensible Santa Monica will endorse from a questionnaire on these positions and from the voting record. We are not endorsing anyone now. How that will work.