A group of La Jollans have a novel approach to keeping the homeless from sitting on the public benches in their tony shopping district. Members of Promote La Jolla are looking for volunteers to sit on the benches along Prospect Street and Girard Avenue so the homeless can’t lounge in front of the upscale restaurants, boutiques and galleries.
Esther Viti with Promote La Jolla chaired a program to install new benches in the village. She said merchants have been complaining about the homeless sitting on the benches.
“We’ve been cleaning up La Jolla,” Viti said.
She has a plan. She’s seeking volunteers to sit on the benches in shifts to prevent the homeless from sitting on them.
La Jolla resident Jackie Sengle said she is concerned the homeless are taking over the area, congregating behind Vons and Jonathans, where the recycling bins are located.
“Why would we have volunteers sit on the benches? C’mon,” Sengle asked. “Not [just] sit on a bench and volunteer, I mean c’mon let’s take action.
“Instead of doing the right thing and asking them to go away, [the volunteers will] sit on the benches,” Sengle said. “I fault it all on Vons for making them comfortable.”
Vita calls her plan Street Solutions.
“Street Solutions handles all the undesirables,” Viti said. “It’s a program where you hire people to come in and they tell these people to move on. Right now it’s just in the organization stage.”
In the next three months or so, she said Street Solutions should go into effect.
“I am a ‘do-er,'” Viti said.
Although the police said the homeless are perfectly within the law, Viti said they are soliciting, which is a misdemeanor.
“I am gonna get that person who is sick off the street,” she said. “The Jewel cannot stay beautiful with all these people running around.”
One of the people Viti would like to see gone from the benches is Chris Kallmeyer, a 52 year old San Diego native who said he’s been homeless in La Jolla for five years.
“That’s just child’s play,” Kallmeyer said, referring to Viti’s plans. “Those people are just very frustrated with themselves.”
Kallmeyer doesn’t think Viti will have much luck with her bench strategy.
“They can’t sit on those benches forever,” he said.
Although Kallmeyer said he brings in close to $1,000 a month, he said he spends his money on Starbucks coffee and Lotto tickets which prevents him from living in a shelter.
He said he prefers the streets of La Jolla to the rat- and drug-infested hotels downtown. But Kallmeyer doesn’t associate with most of the homeless, he said. Half have good educations, and are in a similar predicament, while the other half are on drugs or alcohol, he said.
“It’s getting very dangerous here now too,” Kallmeyer said. Not because of any influx of homeless, he explained, but because of all the traffic noise.
“The noise level is running 24 hours a day, and the body level is too,” he said.
No matter what programs take place in La Jolla, Kallmeyer said he likes to live there because it is convenient. Everything is close and without a car, that is a necessity, he said.
But despite of Viti actions, Kallmeyer said he isn’t planning on leaving. That doesn’t mean Viti is giving up either.
“We are getting complaints big time,” she said.