Logic, Need, Humanity

The Anaheim City Council’s priorities are way out of whack. Last year, the city had no qualms about lending $125,000 in public funds interest-free to the Freedom Bowl to help keep an annual college football game in Anaheim.

But less than two weeks ago the council, sitting as the city Housing Authority, couldn’t see the logic, need or humanity in using city personnel to help process an application for state funds to establish a shelter for the homeless in downtown Anaheim.

Never mind that Anaheim is the largest and one of the most solvent cities in Orange County. Never mind that, despite its size, it still has no shelter for the homeless. Never mind that Anaheim is believed to have more homeless on its streets than any other Orange County city except Santa Ana.

And never mind that three of the city’s Catholic churches reported spending $30,000 a year housing the homeless in local motels, and that a city survey in December showed that about 1,000 people were turned away from social service agencies that didn’t have enough money to put them in motels for the night.

Mayor Ben Bay and Councilman Fred Hunter don’t see any of these things as the city’s problems. Bay thinks that city help for the homeless will lead it down the path to “socialism.” And Hunter worries that opening a shelter would mean an “automatic increase” in the number of homeless people heading for Anaheim.

With a split City Council, the pleas from the other two council members, Miriam Kaywood and Irv Pickler, to approve the request from a coalition of about 30 Anaheim social service agencies and churches fell on unsympathetic ears.

The coalition wasn’t asking the city to contribute money for the shelter project. All it wanted was for the city to process an application for a state grant, at a cost of about $25,000 in city staff time.

The council eventually did the right thing--but for the wrong reason.

Hunter finally relented and agreed to let the city process the application--but only because Bill Taormina, an Anaheim businessman and member of the coalition, agreed to personally cover the city’s cost in processing the grant.

It’s not the first time the city has shut the door in the face of the homeless. Despite Bay’s and Hunter’s contention that the private sector should care for the homeless, the city last June rejected an application for a shelter sought by Christian Temporary Housing Facilities Inc. The neighboring city of Orange accepted the application.

Helping the homeless is not a problem for the private sector alone. It demands the attention of both public and private agencies and individuals. And it should be as much a concern of the Anaheim City Council as it is of the county Board of Supervisors, state Legislature and Congress.