Mayors and city managers from Orange County’s 33 cities have been asked to appear today before U.S. District Judge David Carter, who is overseeing a pair of civil rights lawsuits over the county’s response to homelessness. Judge Carter is expected to ask the municipalities to outline their proposals for addressing the crisis. If he’s not satisfied with the answer, he could issue an injunction barring the communities from enforcing anti-camping ordinances -- a move that could spur “utter panic,” according to Supervisor Shawn Nelson.
Many of the motel vouchers issued in the wake of the Santa Ana River Trail evictions have begun to expire. Meanwhile, the county set its sights on the Santa Ana Civic Center this week, where some 206 people have been told to leave.
There has been intense disagreement in Orange County over what to do, and it has now spawned threats of legal action between the county and its communities.
Supervisors abandoned plans to begin moving people to county properties in Irvine, Laguna Niguel, and Huntington Beach last week after those cities threatened to sue. In response, the City of Santa Ana voted to explore its own legal options against the county and its 32 other cities to ensure the crisis is being fairly shouldered by all cities and not just Santa Ana. In addition, Costa Mesa has loudly objected to a plan to establish an emergency homeless shelter at a shuttered mental hospital owned by the state.
At a special meeting Monday, Supervisors Andrew Do and Shawn Nelson urged all cities to come to the table and help forge solutions to the problem. Do also criticized Supervisor Todd Spitzer for “engendering fear” and spreading “false information” about proposed emergency shelters in his district.
No official action could be taken during the meeting Monday because only Do and Nelson were present. The absence of the other three supervisors felt like an insult to Jeanine Robbins, a volunteer with Housing is a Human Right OC.
“This is the number one issue in the county and possibly the state,” Robbins said, calling the absence “shameful.”