SANTA ANA : Homeless Advocates, Merchants Face Off
Advocates for the homeless faced off with merchants and other citizens this week after some residents asked the city to require mobile soup kitchens to set up toilets, tables and trash cans at each stop.
“These people come over to Santa Ana, throw blankets and a sack of food to the homeless and leave us with the problem,” said Karol W. Van Zant, a member of the neighborhood group Cleanup Our Businesses and Residential Areas (COBRA), which called the meeting earlier this week. “They don’t realize their actions are detrimental to our community.”
The proposal, drafted by COBRA, also would require all soup kitchens to obtain city permits. It is expected to go before the city Planning Commission in February.
The soup kitchens increase the number of homeless in Santa Ana, said Van Zant during a meeting that was attended by about 25 people. Van Zant, who owns an auto parts store on 1st Street, complained that transients litter and scare away business customers.
Van Zant had invited the advocates for the homeless to the meeting to explain why COBRA drafted its proposal.
“You’re very committed and honest people,” Van Zant said. “You have a mission that requires you to help these people. But in your endeavors, you are not helping me. You are hurting me.”
The soup kitchens make Santa Ana an unattractive place for business, said COBRA member Buck Jones, manager of a shopping center on Harbor Boulevard and 1st Street. Jones said his customers are frightened off by panhandlers who stay near his shopping center.
But advocates for the homeless say the proposal is so prohibitive that charity groups will not be able to deliver anything.
COBRA’s concerns are understandable, said Sam Boyce, director of the Newport Beach-based Street People in Need, which distributes sack lunches from a van in three Santa Ana locations. But he added that COBRA’s view on the homeless was “myopic.”
He argued that the new rules would shut down mobile food giveaways because the requirements are too costly.
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