Help for the Homeless . . .

Tonight thousands of homeless men and women--and children--will bed down in some restroom, garbage dumpster, auto, abandoned building or public lobby. That is an ugly blemish on the face of affluent Orange County.

More than ugly, however, is the fact that it is not necessary for many of the homeless to scrounge for a place to sleep each night. They could have rooms of their own if government and the private sector in the county would give more than lip service to their plight.

That was the message that was most evident in a recent report on a survey conducted last May by the Orange County Coalition on the Homeless.

The survey should destroy any stereotype residents may harbor that the homeless are shiftless transients just passing through and looking for handouts. The results showed that 69% of the people interviewed had lived in the county for one year or longer and that most of those had lived here for more than 10 years. More than half had a high school education or better.

The survey also showed something else: Many of the homeless are victims of the county’s high housing costs, coupled with their inability to scrape enough money together to pay the advances and deposits needed to rent places to live.

Those are conditions that could be changed with more affordable housing and with emergency loan funds to help people meet rental deposits. And also with changes in government attitudes that would provide more community shelters and stronger support for the frustrated private agencies that cannot begin to meet the critical need for beds each night.

But is the community sufficiently committed to help ease the problems of the 4,000 or more homeless people in the county, most of whom do not stay in shelters or motels? The coalition doesn’t seem to think so. Neither do we.

One indication is the activity record of a county task force created last January to study the needs of the homeless. It has been more than six months, and the group still hasn’t had its first meeting.

Another is the lack of aggressive action in many county cities to provide lower-cost housing.

There was one positive sign last week, however, that indicates the coalition’s survey and plea for county government to do more for the homeless may not be falling on deaf ears.

For the first time in many years, the county Board of Supervisors, in its annual budget deliberations, approved an increase in county general relief funds, the temporary emergency aid many people use to find food and shelter for the night. It’s about time, considering that the coalition survey found only one hotel in the county charging less than $21 per night, and that the agencies that operate some kind of overnight shelter can only house several hundred people each night when several thousand need a warm, safe place to sleep.

As long as that deplorable condition is allowed to exist, Orange County’s golden image is justifiably tarnished. The homeless haven’t chosen to be homeless. The community must not choose to let them remain that way.