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This just came from the county, great news for OC’s homeless and those who give a damn. I (Vern) was at the Supervisors’ meeting the other morning, and the Voice’s Norberto and Nick were remonstrating furiously with a couple of supe aides, asking WHEN are the homeless going to get to use this newly purchased space? They are dying out there. Well, good news for AND kudos to Norberto, who’s been out front there fighting for this … as well as our friends Lou Noble, Madeleine Spencer, Roussan Joshua Collins and others who were agitating for this at the meeting. Here – you got the good news from the Orange Juice Blog first, the county’s political mosh pit populated by grandiose ankle biters:
Federal Officials Approve Use of Transit Hub to Shelter Homeless
A plan to shelter the homeless during El Niño rainstorms at the unused Santa Ana Transit Terminal in the Orange County Civic Center has been approved on an interim basis through June by the Federal Transit Administration.
The approval was delivered by letter today, two days after the Orange County Transportation Authority made the request on behalf of the County. The County opened escrow last month to buy the property from the Orange County Transportation Authority; a proposed lease for the interim use was sent last week to OCTA and required federal approval.
“The County is committed to doing all we can to help get people out of the rain and sheltered during the El Niño rainstorms that we know are coming,” Board of Supervisors Chairwoman Lisa Bartlett, Fifth District, said.
Board of Supervisors Vice Chair Michelle Steel said the interim use would be available while the County completes the purchase of the building, expected this spring. “This will provide a small but important amount of relief during the rains,” she said.
Earlier this month, Supervisor Andrew Do, First District, directed county staff to work with its federal lobbyists and OCTA to find a faster solution to using the abandoned bus terminal. Supervisor Do praised today’s action, but acknowledged it’s only one part of the county’s comprehensive response to homelessness.
“This emergency shelter will help alleviate suffering in the short-term, and Orange County staff are working with Mercy House to begin preparations of the bus terminal site,” said Supervisor Do, who persuaded his colleagues to create a County “homeless czar” to better coordinate existing assistance programs.
Supervisor Todd Spitzer, Third District, has supported efforts to provide another shelter option for the homeless, many who live in the Civic Center amid government buildings. “We have a moral and ethical duty to protect the homeless, and to provide a safe and clean place for our county employees and the citizens who come to the Civic Center for services,” he said.
Supervisor Shawn Nelson was the first Board member to pose the idea of sheltering the homeless at the unused terminal. The Board last year approved a new multi-service center for the homeless in Anaheim but it won’t be ready until later this year. “We are doing everything we can to help our homeless residents, one step at a time. This step represents one of many in our commitment to that effort,” he said.
The County also finalized a contract Friday with non-profit shelter operator Mercy House to secure emergency shelter beds and transportation services for those caught outside during rainstorms, which could hit again as early as this weekend. The County will continue to use National Guard armories in Fullerton and Santa Ana for night-time shelter and other services, including meals, showers and medical services.
The interim lease with OCTA calls for the County to pay $11,615 a month for emergency use of the terminal property. Providing meals or other services onsite is not permitted under the lease.
“Supervisor Shawn Nelson was the first Board member to pose the idea of sheltering the homeless at the unused terminal.”
Incorrect. It was Moorlach.
Jesus, all they can do is pat themselves on the back. Why are you regurgitating their press releases?
Thanks for the correction. But we had to quickly break the news that it IS going to be immediately available.
What am I missing here? How is the bus depot any better than sitting inside the library during a rainstorm? At least there’s heat inside the library. Are the homeless banned from sitting inside the library? Does one have to prove he has a home to use the library these days? What makes the bus depot so special? How is it any better than a parking garage or under the freeway from 9pm to when the library opens in the morning? I don’t get it.
Uh…because libraries should be used as libraries and shelters should be used as shelters. Same with the fact that parks should be used as parks and not as campgrounds. I don’t agree with pushing people out (or taking their stuff) if there is no alternative location. That is just being an asshole because you can. On the other hand, we know there ARE some who have dismissed offers of help and simply prefer the freestyle life without rules offered by taxpayers, when we permit rent free camping on public land to take the place of participating in the economy and paying for a place to stay, knowing places like the Armory will take them in when the weather gets truly uncomfortable. The sooner we can offer designated locations as alternatives to public spaces intended for other uses, the sooner we may separate those truly in need who we should be doing backflips to help in any way possible, and those who have decided to voluntarily drop out of society and are pushing for homelessness (once considered freeloading) to be a viable alternative lifestyle, normalized and accepted through the Homeless Bill of Rights that fails to address those rights to use public space as only a temporary stopgap measure until real aid is available. There is bending the rules of public space use for a short period in the name of compassion, and then there is being suckered into underwriting someone’s choice to live without rules. I am tired of the constant push and pull of not knowing who is in need and who is gaming the system, and shelters get us one step closer to answers. This of course recognizes that good people in genuine need can still refuse the shelters for a variety of reasons, but again we can now triage and help even that situation, because identifying obstacles to using a shelter space begins with the offer of a shelter space previously unavailable. Sorry I thought that was evident.
The library is not open all night. The terminal center will be.
Folks get cranky about the homeless hanging out at the library, and call the cops, and it is uncomfortable for all involved. There is behavior we all engage in as social beings, such as a conversation at normal volume, which is inappropriate for a library, but perfectly reasonable at the transit center. To have a place specifically set aside where the intended users are offered some measure of dignity, and made to feel as welcome guests who belong where they have come to, rather than feeling they are being hounded and might be removed at any moment, has to be less stressful for both our homeless residents and the librarians who are not trained to offer the assistance they need. For many who are dealing with mental health issues, stress becomes a trigger for worsening of those issues. A place with a lower stress level would be a welcome relief.
One may indeed hang out at a library without proving they have a home, but the moment you fall asleep at a library your use of the facility has changed, and library staff may now have you removed.
While librarians are among the most generous and warm hearted people I know, they are not trained to handle a mass public health crisis such as the homelessness that is straining OC’s resources today. They can offer a kind word, but what is needed is someone trained to offer resources. By offering an alternative location, we may begin the evaluation and intake process that determines how best to cobble together the assortment of services offered in the hodgepodge of gov agencies and non-profits, and get someone more permanent assistance than merely a place to get out of the rain for the day. That won’t (it can’t) happen in a library, and it could happen at the terminal center.
Library patrons also deserve a place to sit and read a book (especially those materials that cannot be checked out and removed from the premises, such as original research materials I routinely use) and when the homeless have their stuff all over multiple chairs/seating areas, those areas are now unavailable for the use for which they were intended. This clash of uses creates an adversarial relationship over space that doesn’t need to happen.
I have compassion for my unhoused neighbors, but I also deserve a place where I may work for a living by extracting information from public research materials stored at various public libraries/local archives which I may not take home and must review in situ. If we offer our unhoused brethren an alternative location where they may remain warm and dry and not be hassled, (I assume some form of floor covering and temp heat source will be made available and we are not asking human beings to huddle on body-heat-sapping pavement) we not only offer them more long range services as I mentioned above, we might finally return the libraries to their rightful use as libraries, and stop fighting over the limited space the pits users against loiterers, so we can instead use that energy to find he causes and cures for homelessness in the first place.
Well said, library patron!
Now to get them to open up, for the overnight and bad-weather shelter use of the homeless, the almost empty bus (and train) station in Anaheim.
*It has a lovely view plane…a little breezy during rainstorms and it is hard
to light the BBQ ….but other than that….maybe the Feds will offer some pup tents….maybe.
IMO a homeless man has just as much a right to sit in a libary and read a book or even stare into space as a millionaire who lives in a mansion on Newport Coast. Not only is that my opinion. It’s the law. The cops can’t arrest a man for wearing disheveled clothing or being unbathed. If I were a homeless person in Santa Ana I would spend most of my waking hours at the libary. Prohibiting homeless people from occupying the library would be as ruthless and immoral as prohibiting people of a certain skin color from using a public restroom.
I have no idea what the inside of the Civic Center bus depot looks like. I have no idea whether it’s an appropriate place to shelter homeless people. It might be. It might not be. I don’t know. What does it offer than a roof? At what cost?
When a Cat 5 hurricane hit the City of New Orleans that left thousands homeless it didn’t take long for the government gatekeepers to find a solution. The brought in hundreds of shipping containers and turned them into livable domiciles. This could be done in Orange County too. The will just isn’t there. It’s easier to buy a bus depot, regardless whether it’s really suitable to shelter homeless people.
“The brought in hundreds of shipping containers and turned them into livable domiciles. This could be done in Orange County too. The will just isn’t there. It’s easier to buy a bus depot, regardless whether it’s really suitable to shelter homeless people.”
Buying the bus depot was by no means easy. The BoS did it under extreme PR duress. But the most expensive option is where they go – every time.
The point about shipping containers is well-taken. I saw a clip-together plastic shed with a gable roof and windows in double doors at the Brea Home Depot – retail cost $500, or so, as I recall.
Imagine how many of those things could be set up for the price of that bus drive-though.
The purchase of the bus depot was an easy-out for the BoS. It didn’t take a scintilla of imagination. All it took was a few $million$ of other people’s money. And boy, are they ever good at that!
Bus depots are not constructed to house homeless people. So the suitability of such an arrangement is highly questionable. But that never even came up in the conversation. If they could legally get away with it, it wouldn’t have surprised me had they’d purchased a plot of land under the I-5 freeway to shelter the homeless.
There are many other options. The shipping container option is only one. But that’d require both imagination and the will to effectively address the problem. They could’ve probably purchase the used shipping containers from FEMA on the cheap!
Let’s hope that now the County can disband the ’10 years End to Homelessness’ committee and force all those beard-scratching 6-figure managers to go find real jobs
If only there were some location that the City owned along Harbor and the 91 where such structures could be set up!
To be crystal clear, the public library welcomes everyone irrespective of their ability to pay. It’s public. It’s free.
Abide by the code of conduct and stay as long as you’d like.
That said, the county has used the public library system as its defacto shelter program for decades. Libraries will continue to find new and creative ways to serve all patrons, but asking librarians to serve as both stewards of knowledge and social workers isn’t good for anyone.
A full time shelter is a long overdue step in the right direction for everyone.
“A full time shelter is a long overdue step in the right direction for everyone”
Yes. A homeless shelter. We all agree. It’s needed. But not a million dollar plus bus depot masquerading as a homeless shelter. Bring in the shipping containers with the living accomodations. The bus depot is a cop out and the non-efficient use of County taxdollars!
Zieg, you are right about the bus depot. The BoS latched on to it (finally) because of pressure by one dude – Norberto Santana – and that’s a really crappy way to govern.
The Kraemer site is hyper-crappy, too, and likewise has the virtue of being immensely expensive and more than likely to fail – although we’ll never find out about the magnitude of the failure, because, well, you know.
I haven’t seen a single soul who has really had a grasp of how to address the homeless issue – which is as a technical problem, instead of as a problem of (not enough) Christian charity, or even worse, a problem in political public relations.
Speaking of Christian charity, I believe it was the eponymous Jesus who said “the poor will always be with you.”
Have you read Kurt Vonnegut’s essay on that statement of Jesus’ in his collection “Palm Sunday”? It’s brilliant.
David, with the direction American society is moving the homelessness problem will only get worse. Certainly not better. More jobs headed overseas w/TPP and more foreigners entering the USA to take jobs from US citizens. I feel for the kids getting advanced IT degrees coming out of US universities with $100,000 in student debt. Their jobs are being gifted to H1b visa immigrants. Add the cost of housing and education and we’re headed for huge homeless populations. Poverty extraordinaire!
And the elite parasites will continue to create massive wealth for themselves in the ‘War on Homelessness’. You’ve seen it on the County level. Look at all the 6-figure phonies in their County cubicles pushing pencils. Do you ever see them breaking bread with the homeless on the library lawn? ha. No way. The would be beneath them. But they’ll make a nice 25 year career w/ a fat pension on the backs of the homeless.
The people in charge of fixing homelessness couldn’t fix a bicycle tire. I know them. Worse, the solutions are always defining the problem, a hurdle in all organizations without leadership. The problems end up chasing the solutions.
Then throw in the politicians, politicking instead of governing, and you’re on the road to nowhere.
Hear, hear!
Cheers Vern on the scoop. Cheers to all those who pushed for this to happen STAT.
Now all we need is it to actually rain!
Once again Santa Ana (downtown) dis-poportionately shoulders the burden of this COUNTY problem.
This was as much a show by the actors involved as anything. I don’t expect to see Santana promoting the Zig as a shelter. We just don’t need that in Laguna Niguel.
Gotta go. Animals to be nuetered.
You’re right — and it’s wrong. The rest of the county should pony up if Santa Ana and Anaheim are going to handle more than their share of the problem. The Cities of Brea and Fullerton, I think it was, already showed the way regarding the Kraemer Center in the Anaheim Canyon. (Frankly, the rest of Anaheim, which loves the homeless being stowed safely across the river, should pony up for that one too.)
So should the rest of Califorina if LA, OC, San Diego, etc. take more than our share. And so should the rest of the U.S. if California and its southwestern neighbors take more than our collective share. It’s a national problem; the burden should be shared.
A plan to shelter the homeless during El Niño rainstorms at the unused Santa Ana Transit Terminal in the Orange County Civic Center has been approved on an interim basis through June by the Federal Transit Administration.
The approval was delivered by letter today, two days after the Orange County Transportation Authority made the request on behalf of the County. The County opened escrow last month to buy the property from the Orange County Transportation Authority; a proposed lease for the interim use was sent last week to OCTA and required federal approval.
“The County is committed to doing all we can to help get people out of the rain and sheltered during the El Niño rainstorms that we know are coming,” Board of Supervisors Chairwoman Lisa Bartlett, Fifth District, said.
The County also finalized a contract Friday with non-profit shelter operator, Mercy House, to secure emergency shelter beds and transportation services for those caught outside during rainstorms, which could hit again as early as this weekend. The County will continue to use National Guard armories in Fullerton and Santa Ana for night-time shelter and other services, including meals, showers and medical services.
The interim lease with OCTA calls for the County to pay $11,615 a month for emergency use of the terminal property. Providing meals or other services onsite is not permitted under the lease.
*No Andy Gumps? No Mobil Health or Dental trucks? No place to secure personal possessions? No heating? No tents or blankets? Not so good.