South Orange County cities face federal judge today over homeless shelters

SANTA ANA Now it is south Orange County’s turn to answer to a federal judge in a new civil rights lawsuit calling for an end to alleged mistreatment of homeless people who claim their needs are being ignored.

On Tuesday, April 2, District Judge David O. Carter turns his attention to representatives of five south county cities — Irvine, Aliso Viejo, Dana Point, San Clemente and San Juan Capistrano — named in the latest legal action from the same lawyers who last year successfully sued several north and central Orange County cities along with the County of Orange.

The 2018 lawsuit has led to homeless shelters opening in Anaheim, Costa Mesa, and Tustin, with two more planned for later this year in Buena Park and Placentia. The city of Santa Ana, which filed a cross complaint in the 2018 lawsuit, also has added 200 temporary shelter beds and is working on a permanent 600-bed shelter in conjunction with the county.

The latest complaint, filed in February on behalf of three homeless people and three homeless advocacy groups, argues that anti-camping ordinances and other laws in the five south county cities criminalizes homeless people. The suit also names the Orange County Sheriff’s Department, whose deputies provide policing services to four of the five defendant cities.

It’s unclear if the cities will respond today with plans to build new shelters.

Last year, as a civil rights suit involving homeless people camped along the Santa Ana River Trail unfolded, the county Board of Supervisors bowed to public pressure and scuttled previously approved plans to open temporary shelters at the Great Park in Irvine and in the cities of Huntington Beach and Laguna Niguel.

An alternative site suggested by south county officials — at county-owned property that formerly housed an elementary school in Silverado Canyon — was rejected by county supervisors as too remote a week after it was proposed.

Tensions over the presence of homeless people and the advocates who serve them food and provide other help are particularly high in some parts of south county, such as the north beach area of San Clemente, near the city-owned Ole Hanson Beach Club, and Doheny State Beach in Dana Point.

The five cities named in the south county lawsuit stood out because of the relatively large size of their homeless populations and because of what plaintiffs’ attorney Brooke Weitzman argued in a recent interview is a “particularly strong resistance to helping homeless people.”

“It’s dangerous,” Weitzman said. “Community members are actually physically assaulting our clients, threatening our clients, or chasing them around taking videos and telling them to leave.”

She spoke of an incident last month in San Clemente that involved an unknown assailant who set a homeless man’s tent on fire with a firecracker. The man wasn’t injured, but police did take a report, she said.

On the other hand, homeowners and residents in social media community groups cite numerous instances of what they describe as lawless behavior by transients, and squalor left by people squatting in public places.

A cellphone video of a March 23 altercation between two homeless men at North Beach was posted on the Facebook page San Clemente Life. It led to the arrest of a 51-year-old man, who was booked on assault with a deadly weapon — a tree branch — said Carrie Braun, spokeswoman for Orange County Sheriff’s Department.

Residents have taken to social media to express frustration, saying they’ve been let down by public officials, and that they increasingly need to take matters into their own hands.

One homeowner, posting on San Clemente Life the day after a neighbor’s car was broken into, wrote: “I am tired of the excuses from our elected officials and the blame game. It seems we now have double standards. This leads to a lawless society. I will defend my house and my neighbors and do whatever it takes to protect my friends and family.”

In other court action late Monday, attorneys in the civil rights lawsuits filed a separate complaint against the county on behalf of three homeless people who allege that the Orange County Social Services Agency has unfairly disqualified them from the social support programs, including cash aid through the General Relief welfare program.

That complaint claims that the county illegally used in-kind help, including subsidized rent in housing programs, to calculate the plaintiffs’ income and deem them ineligible or to terminate them from other social aid.

Come back later for updates to this story.