SANTA ANA : Suit Will Try to Halt Homeless Sweeps

Attorneys for the homeless are expected to file suit against Santa Ana officials today in an effort to stop police from conducting sweeps at the Civic Center, where dozens of homeless have been arrested in recent weeks for minor infractions.

Attorneys at the Legal Aid Society of Orange County, as well as members of several prestigious law firms, said they intend to file the lawsuit in Orange County Superior Court. Mayor Daniel H. Young, City Manager David N. Ream and Police Chief Paul M. Walters are expected to be named in the suit.

“We’re concerned that the city will keep on repeating the sweeps,” Crystal C. Sims, Legal Aid’s director of litigation, said Monday. “If the practice is not stopped, we are going to see the same police activities in other cities that want to get rid of their homeless.”

In the complaint, an early copy of which was provided to The Times, attorneys charge that police sweeps at the Civic Center are part of a citywide campaign initiated in 1988 to “drive the homeless from the city of Santa Ana.” The August sweeps “renewed and intensified” the campaign, according to the lawsuit.

The suit also alleges that the police sweeps, particularly one that took place on Aug. 15, violated homeless people’s constitutional rights to equal protection and freedom from unreasonable search and seizure by the police.

City Atty. Edward J. Cooper said he has not seen the complaint but pointed out that the police were enforcing local laws that cannot be restrained by a court order.

In numerous interviews, Chief Walters has said that the sweeps were aimed at criminals and did not target the homeless.

In August, Santa Ana police conducted two sweeps at the Civic Center, arresting more than 90 people, most of them for municipal code infractions such as public drunkenness, littering and urinating in public. Seven people were arrested on outstanding warrants. Walters has said he will continue the sweeps until the number of crimes is lowered in the area.

The sweeps marked the end of an uneasy truce between the homeless and the city. In February, the City Council had agreed to pay 14 homeless people $50,000 for the confiscation and discarding of their bedrolls and other personal property during cleanup sweeps at city parks and the Civic Center two years ago. The settlement also included an agreement under which city officials said they would not conduct large-scale maintenance sweeps without giving notice to the homeless.

In 1988, the city began seizing the possessions of homeless people during periodic citywide cleanups at all parks and public areas. City workers initially threw the items away. But after a public uproar, they began putting them in a dumpster at Centennial Regional Park and allowing homeless people to search for their belongings.