A Can, but It’s Not for Trash : Homeless Accept Secure Bins for Belongings; Some Tell Misgivings
Dozens of homeless people traded their shopping carts for wheeled, padlocked bins donated by a private group Tuesday, but the gifts were greeted with an uneasy mixture of gratitude and resentment.
Homeless people lined up in the parking lot outside City Hall to receive the 65-gallon, polyethylene trash cans. Project Dignity, the Garden Grove advocacy group that arranged the swap, gave out 77 of the dark green containers, each with a “certificate of ownership” taped to the inside of the lid and a serial number that can be used to reunite lost bins with their owners.
Frank, a 33-year-old who declined to give his full name, said he was grateful to get a mobile bin with a lock to protect his bedroll and other belongings, but he added that he was uncomfortable with the message it could convey.
“Pushing a trash can around doesn’t seem very nice to me,” he said as several homeless friends nodded silently. “It’s humiliating enough to live this way, and now this is like a statement, like we’re trash-can people.”
But Mike Doughty, 33, who has lived in the Civic Center area about three months, said he likes the fact that the trash cans are large, locked and weatherproof.
“I think they’re really good,” he said. “I’m surprised someone would do something like this for us.”
With no secure place to keep their things, the homeless around the Civic Center are vulnerable to thefts. Many also have lost possessions when agencies hired by grocery stores retrieved the shopping carts.
Last summer, Viva supermarkets agreed to give $25,000, jobs and groceries to homeless people whose belongings were dumped in a huge pile in the Civic Center by a firm that the market hired to confiscate the carts.
Project Dignity officials said they hope that the trash bins will make the illegal use of shopping carts unnecessary and give homeless people a little bit of security.
“These people make some attempt to get their lives together. They have their cooking utensils, their family photos, whatever, and then they just get dumped,” Project Dignity spokeswoman Linda Dunlap said. “It’s demoralizing. Helping them secure their possessions is the greatest gift we can give them. It’s something they can count on.”
The idea came from a Santa Ana police corporal at a monthly meeting of community leaders at the Legal Aid Society of Orange County, according to Robert J. Cohen, Legal Aid’s executive director. Project Dignity then turned to Roto Injection Products Inc., an Anaheim container manufacturer, which agreed to provide the bins for half price, Hector Ochoa, Roto’s general manager, said.
“We’re trying to give the homeless a little dignity, a little privacy and a little security,” Ochoa said, laying a proud hand on one of the bins.
Project Dignity’s David Dunlap praised the program, telling one homeless man: “This is the beginning of a new era. You own these things. No one can take them away from you.”
But some skeptics were unconvinced.
“Pretty soon, the police will want to start getting in these carts and seeing what we have in there,” said David Robinson, 23, who began living on the streets a month ago when he was laid off a car-painting job in Los Angeles. “It’s just an excuse to harass us more.”
Others complained that the project was not adequately publicized and that the timing, a Tuesday afternoon, made it impossible for homeless people with daytime jobs to obtain the new containers.
Since the publicized dumping incident involving Viva markets, the Southern California Grocers Assn. has posted warning notices around the Civic Center 24 hours before a planned sweep to gather up carts.
But homeless people said that despite the warnings, many still lose their belongings. Miguel Saldivar, 46, said his cart and all his things disappeared in a morning roundup while he was gone.
To help alleviate that problem, the Santa Ana Police Department has agreed to allow the homeless to store the new bins in a section of the Civic Center parking lot.
Sgt. Gary Adams, administrative assistant to Police Chief Paul M. Walters, said he thinks that the department’s cooperation could improve relations with the homeless.
In the last year and a half, the city’s handling of the homeless has cost it at least $462,000. Earlier this month, $400,000 was doled out to settle a lawsuit filed by homeless people who were picked up for minor infractions in a series of sweeps last summer. Those charges were thrown out of court when a judge ruled that police had discriminated against the homeless.
Another $50,000 was paid to 14 people whose belongings were discarded in “maintenance” sweeps of the Civic Center. Another woman was paid $12,500 after being injured during an arrest near the train station.
City Atty. Edward J. Cooper, whose office has defended the city, said the city has tried to improve life for the homeless in the Civic Center by providing portable toilets and washing down the pavement more frequently. But he doesn’t feel optimistic when he looks out his office window and sees the tents and shopping carts.
“Things haven’t improved much,” he said.
