SANTA ANA : Lawyers Propose Summit on Homeless

Concerned that the homeless camp in the Santa Ana Civic Center may be reaching a “crisis point,” the Orange County Bar Assn. is calling on city and county officials and advocates of the homeless to join local lawyers in finding solutions to the problem.

The plea for a summit on the issue is similar to a proposal offered earlier this month by ministers of the downtown churches to formulate a countywide strategy to deal with homelessness.

Bar association officials said Friday their first priority is the Civic Center area, where the homeless population has increased in recent months.

“It’s interfering with the administration of justice . . . inhibiting those who are going in and out of the courthouse,” President Thomas R. Malcolm said.

Jurors also have complained about the presence of the homeless outside the courthouse, Malcolm said.

Officials said their proposal should not be interpreted as an attempt to drive the homeless out of the Civic Center.

“We are going to try to understand the problem and see if we can come up with some solutions,” said Chief Assistant Dist. Atty. Maurice Evans, co-chairman of the bar association’s newly formed task force.

City Manager David N. Ream was unavailable for comment, but senior management assistant Jill Arthur said the city supports the concept of a study group on the issue.

The lawyers’ group previously helped defend the constitutional rights of the homeless after a series of arrest sweeps through the Civic Center by the city.

“We’d like to have a preventive approach rather than go in there with sweeps,” Malcolm said. “Hopefully, it will be a vital task force.”