Santa Ana Ban on Camping by Homeless Gets Initial OK : Law: Effort to oust growing tent communities could spur legal challenges.

Targeting two of what they consider to be among the city’s worst problems, City Council members on Monday approved a new ordinance that would remove the homeless from public areas and considered another law that would eliminate slum conditions by requiring inspections of all 37,000 residential rental units in the city.

On the homeless issue, the council vote may have set the stage for another legal battle concerning the rights of the city’s indigent population by banning camping and the storage of personal property in public areas.

The council postponed for two weeks a vote on the mandatory residential rental inspection program after receiving a request from a group of apartment owners to give those on both sides of the issue an opportunity to negotiate a compromise.

But an anti-camping ordinance was given preliminary approval despite a warning from the Legal Aid Society of Orange County that the city could be held in contempt of a 1990 Superior Court ruling prohibiting the city from taking “concerted action to drive the homeless individual from Santa Ana.”

More than a dozen homeless people and advocates for the homeless were unsuccessful in persuading the council to abandon this latest effort to control the homeless population that is most visible in the Civic Center. They said the ordinance would not solve the larger homeless issue and urged instead that the city pursue long-term solutions such as the development of temporary housing, drug rehabilitation and job-training programs.

“People do defecate on the street, I know that,” said Norman Bell, a homeless man who won $15,000 from the city to settle a lawsuit alleging civil rights violations. “The way you are going about it, by trying to enforce this ordinance, do you know the ramifications you are going to have here? Do you know the legal battles you are going to have here?”

Lee Podolak of the Orange County Homeless Issues Task Force said the city was trying to “wave a magic wand” and hope that the problem would disappear.

But the council also heard from state employees in the Civic Center who complained about women being sexually harassed, employees being panhandled and automobiles being vandalized.

“All of the employees of my state agency are very concerned and very worried over the increase of the homeless population,” said Tom McCrady, a state office manager.

Even though the homeless advocates outnumbered supporters of the ordinance, a majority of the council voted to approve the proposal. Five council members supported it, with Mayor Pro Tem Miguel A. Pulido Jr. voting against it. Mayor Daniel H. Young was absent. The ordinance is scheduled for a second reading in two weeks and will go into effect 30 days later.

But city officials set aside the warnings and expressed confidence that the new law will survive legal scrutiny.

The order issued by the Superior Court in 1990 “simply says we are not going to take any action specifically aimed at the homeless,” City Atty. Edward J. Cooper said before the council meeting. “(The new ordinance) is aimed at everybody.”

During the public debate, council members frequently referred to the unsanitary and unsafe conditions created by the large numbers of homeless people sleeping just outside the doors of the council chambers.

“It’s happening out there tonight,” Councilman Richards L. Norton said. “We missed the 8 o’clock beer run. It’s a mess out there.”

Councilman Daniel E. Griset added that to not approve the ordinance would be a “dereliction on our part as community leaders.”

Pulido said afterward that he is “fed up with it as well,” but felt that the city needs to do more to solve the problem.

Thwarted previously by the courts from using current laws to stop the homeless from constructing makeshift tents and other shelter, Cooper based the new regulations on a Santa Barbara ordinance that was upheld in Superior Court in 1989.

A separate law banning camping in city parks already exists, Cooper said. Similar laws also have been recently voted on by the Fullerton and Orange city councils.

Still, approval of the Santa Ana ordinance is expected to renew the ongoing court battle between those who defend the rights of the homeless to set up their own shelter, and city officials who have been pressured by residents and business owners to control the increasing number of homeless residents.

In a letter delivered to council members Monday, Legal Aid attorney Harry Simon stated, “In combination with state laws that punish occupation of private property without permission, this provision would effectively make it unlawful for homeless persons to remain within the City of Santa Ana.”

The letter also stated that the ordinance violates the rights of the indigents of freedom of movement and punishes the homeless for living outdoors even though they have no alternatives.

For those reasons, Simon said, Santa Ana could be violating the existing Superior Court order stemming from a 1990 lawsuit that challenged the arrests of about 30 homeless people in the Civic Center.

In that case, the city paid the homeless plaintiffs a total of $400,000. Other civil rights cases brought by the homeless have resulted in the city paying additional settlements totaling about $100,000.

The Legal Aid attorneys said they are not limiting their fight to Santa Ana and are currently studying the anti-camping laws approved in Fullerton and Orange.

Although the camping ban has been under discussion at City Hall for several months, City Manager David N. Ream previously stated a reluctance to take the ordinance to the council because the lack of space at the Orange County Jail would keep the city from enforcing the new law.

But the council came a step closer Monday to alleviating that problem when it approved a $2.6-million agreement to lease a 48-cell temporary holding facility.

Plans call for the modular unit of trailers converted into jail cells to be leased for three years while the city constructs a new police headquarters and 240-bed jail.

Meanwhile, under the residential property inspection program being considered by the council, all of the city’s estimated 37,000 rental units would be assessed an annual permit fee of $55 per dwelling and would be checked about once every four years to make sure they meet city and state codes.

If violations are found, owners could lose their permits and would not be able to rent the units until repairs are made and reinspection fees have been paid.

Apartment association spokesman Richard J. Lambros criticized the city for plowing ahead on the ordinance.

While the apartment association supports an inspection program, Lambros said the group prefers a pilot program limited to about 3,000 units that would have targeted the known slumlords.

Instead, he said, the city’s proposal and the mandatory annual permit fee punishes the responsible landlords in order to police the worst code violators.

“The city wants to fund its code enforcement department through this mechanism,” Lambros said, referring to the $2 million that would be generated annually for city coffers through the permit fee. “We feel that a vast majority of the owners are good owners.”