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"February 5, 2016Perhaps you\u2019ve heard the tale of the Starfish?As the story goes, a child is walking along the beach after a stormy high-tide, where there are thousands of now stranded starfish on shore. The child sees an old man slowly stooping down, getting a single starfish, and gently flinging it back into the receding ocean. The child asks the man what he\u2019s doing. The old man explains that he\u2019s throwing the starfish back in the sea so they don\u2019t die. The child says that\u2019s crazy; there are miles of beach and thousands of stranded starfish; what possible difference can you make? The old man slowly bends down, gets another starfish, and tosses it back in the ocean, saying to the child, \u201CIt sure made a difference to that one.\u201DThe One Starfish Safe Parking Program on the Monterey Peninsula aims to help homeless women.And this week, after months of haggling over details, the Monterey City Council approved a plan to support this program. It\u2019s designed to provide a safe place to park overnight. The women participating must have a driver\u2019s license, a properly registered car, and are screened and supported by a case worker. These are likely women on the thinnest edge; not yet destitute, itinerant, and hopeless, but more likely brought to this temporary homeless situation due to losing a job, having to quickly escape spousal abuse, or having scraped by precariously paycheck-to-paycheck, they faced an unexpectedly large expense that finally imploded their fragile balance.The One Starfish Safe Parking Program is, by its design, a relatively modest effort. Only six women at a time can be registered to participate. But our KSBW Editorial Board is proud of the Monterey City Council; they and the city manager looked for a way to give this effort a try, rather than just say no.Will it fix the larger homeless problem? Of course not. But like the starfish saved by the old man in the story, it can surely make a profound difference \u2013 in this case, six women at a time."^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.ksbw.com/article/editorial-monterey-sees-starfish-value/1296410>