Homeless at Civic Center Decline to Relocate : Santa Ana: City officials seek compromise after failure of attempts to move people into a nearby parking lot.

City officials and the homeless population living in the Civic Center attempted to work out a compromise Wednesday after the city failed in its initial attempts to move the homeless to a nearby parking lot.

Hoping to improve maintenance of the area and respond to complaints from Civic Center employees and patrons, the city’s Recreation and Community Services Agency notified the homeless this week that a new area had been set aside for them and asked that they move voluntarily.

Parks Supt. Mike Lopez and other city staff members walked through the Civic Center on Wednesday morning, advising the homeless of the new space in the parking lot at the northwest corner of the center.

But some of the estimated 200 people who call the Civic Center home emphatically told parks officials that they did not want to relocate.

“Is it true you are trying to get us to move on one parking lot?” 33-year-old Dino Farrow asked Lopez. “It is not going to work because people are not going to get along. You are going to have a lot of trouble. You are going to have fighting and carrying on and all kinds of” trouble.

Lopez responded that the move was not mandatory, but any property left unattended in the central plaza areas would be removed by city work crews.

“We are not trying to force anybody,” he told several people. “We are trying to get the word out. We are trying to clean up the area. If there is any lost or abandoned property. . . .”

Brutus Jones, 40, interrupted, saying, “Well, there is not any lost or abandoned property.” He said that some people had left their gear in the plazas and parking garages to find day labor, but that the property was not abandoned.

As they have done on previous “maintenance” days, the homeless people temporarily moved their shelters made of blankets, plastic, cardboard and wood just a few feet to allow city crews to steam clean the plaza.

City officials said they wanted to work with the homeless and with the Legal Aid Society of Orange County, which has won civil rights lawsuits in the past over issues concerning the city’s handling of the homeless population.

In addition to concerns about safety, the homeless said they oppose the new site because it does not have drainage or running water. Their current location between City Hall and the Orange County Courthouse has two water faucets that they use to wash themselves.

Legal Aid Executive Director Robert Cohen said he was also concerned that by cordoning off an area in a parking lot, the city was putting the homeless “on public display,” and that attorneys and others doing business at the courthouse would complain about having to park their cars near them.

But Recreation and Community Services Executive Director Allen Doby said the city had to balance the needs of the homeless against the concerns of the approximately 4,000 Civic Center employees who work in the city, county, state and federal buildings.

The employees “have a right to a decent work place also,” Doby said, adding that the city receives an average of 25 complaints each day about the homeless relating to indecent exposure, panhandling, the stench of urine and other problems.

“I am getting pressure from both sides and there’s only so many ways I can bend,” Doby said.

He said the parking lot site was chosen because it is farthest away from the Civic Center complex.

In response to the concerns that the new site does not having running water facilities, Doby replied, “There’s probably a reason why there’s no running water over there. Because it is not a residence. It is a parking lot.”

In preparation for the move, the city had transferred to the parking lot two portable toilets that had been stationed near the plazas for use by the homeless.

Doby said that because the city would continue to encourage the homeless to move, the portable toilets would remain in the new location.

“I think we are going to win on that,” Jones said. “People get up at night, 2 o’clock in the morning, and who’s going to walk way over there? A lot of people are older people and have bad bladders, and you know, you gotta go when you gotta go.”