Esther Viti, the beautification chair for Promote La Jolla’s business district, began working on upgrading benches in the village a few years ago. Recently, merchants started complaining that the homeless were sitting on them for extended periods, but Viti says she will not see her hard work compromised.
“We’ve been cleaning up La Jolla,” Viti said.
Every other month, a group meets to clean the streets. Viti wants to expand her program to occupy benches so the homeless can’t camp out on them.
“Why would we have volunteers sit on the benches? C’mon,” La Jolla resident Jackie Sengle asked. “Not just sit on a bench and volunteer. I mean, c’mon. Let’s take action.”
Sengle lives on Eads Avenue and is concerned that transients are taking over the area, congregating behind Vons and Jonathans, where recycling bins are located.
“Instead of doing the right thing and asking them to go away, they’ll sit on the benches,” Sengle said. “I fault it all on Vons for making them comfortable.”
But Viti does have a program that will ask the homeless to leave. First, she sent an e-mail to residents and merchants, asking for volunteers to take shifts occupying benches so the bums couldn’t. When Viti didn’t get a large response, another plan came to mind, she said.
“I’ve got people that are willing to do it,” Viti said. “But it’s something we must address as a community.”
She cited her new plan and said, “Now the street people are going to be addressed.” Viti calls the plan Street Solutions but said she didn’t think of the name.
“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 doer,” Viti said.
She said she will do something. Although police said the homeless are perfectly within the law, Viti said they are soliciting, 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 street people is Chris Kallmeyer, a 52-year-old San Diego native who said he’s been living on the streets of 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 [volunteers] can’t sit on those benches forever,” he said.
Although Kallmeyer brings in close to $1,000 a month, has a degree and spends his money on Starbucks and Lotto tickets, his cost of living prohibits him from utilizing the shelter he would like. 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.
Kallmeyer isn’t allowed to enter the market where he buys his Lotto tickets; he can’t go inside Vons, either. He waits for someone to take pity on him long enough to realize he isn’t begging for money or running a scam. He simply wants a vente regular coffee with cream and three Splendas, “one of those wooden stirry things, and as much napkins as you can get without getting arrested.”
Kallmeyer knows a vente costs $1.95; he wants the cream added perfectly, to turn his coffee the right color caramel. He also wants three Lotto tickets from across the street for numbers to fill in, plus a Quick Pick. He gives the other dollar away.
“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.
But people still treat him the same. Of ten people, he said five won’t have anything to do with him, three will help him out and two will become his best friends.
No matter what programs take place in La Jolla, Kallmeyer said he likes to live here because it is convenient. Everything is close by, and without a car that is a necessity, he said.
However, convenience for transients like Kallmeyer translates to inconvenience for many La Jolla merchants and to community activists such as Viti, who constantly try to beautify the village.
“There are no rules on the books,” Viti said. “We are getting complaints big-time.”
San Diego Police Department Capt. Shelly Zimmerman disagrees with Viti’s plan. Viti used Zimmerman’s name in her e-mail request for volunteers, saying the captain suggested the bench plan.
“I’m trying to get her to understand it’s not against the law to be homeless,” Zimmerman said.
Although Zimmerman said she had a “long conversation about the homeless on park benches” and gave Viti many different resources, including information about the department’s outreach program, Viti zeroed in on part of the conversation in which Zimmerman said benches are public, “first come, first serve.”
“I said anybody can sit there because it’s first come, first serve. I said, ‘You can sit there,'” Zimmerman said.
That’s when Viti realized La Jollans could take back their benches, Zimmerman said.
“I was really trying to convey to her it’s not against the law to be homeless,” she said.
The SDPD’s Homeless Outreach Team (HOT) assists transients with shelter, medication and other needs. According to officer Timothy Burns, HOT acts as a bridge for San Diego’s homeless, but they need to want help.
Anyone, homeless or not, can call the SDPD HOT, (858) 490-3850. Burns said the team will drive to meet anyone. For immediate help, the HOT team will be downtown at the public restrooms, at 3rd Avenue and C Street, from 6:30 to 8:30 a.m. daily.