Lines Drawn Over New Effort to Oust Homeless : Law: Santa Ana says camping ban ensures ‘quality of life.’ Civic Center squatters say they’ll stay put.

In the shadows of Orange County’s center of government, the stench of urine permeates the air.

There is no heat in the winter and no air conditioning in the summer in this growing shanty town. And for most residents, plastic covers or donated tents offer the only protection from the occasional rain.

In this community of about 300, as in any other, people talk about life and worry about death. A baby was born here recently. One couple lost all of their worldly possessions in a fire a month ago. And one man was stabbed in a nearby neighborhood.

They will look you in the eye and proudly call themselves survivors.

Some are alcoholics, at least half are suspected drug users, others are mentally ill and most are hopelessly unemployed. And perhaps all of them simply want the right to be left alone.

But while they may claim squatters’ rights to the public land their makeshift homes sit on, city officials are reminding them that they are, in fact, homeless.

Heeding public complaints that the homeless community is unsafe and unsanitary, the City Council has approved a new law designed to drive them from the city altogether and especially from the Civic Center where they are most visible. The law bans camping or the storage of personal property on public land throughout Santa Ana.

Too often, city officials said, they have heard horror stories from government employees and visitors who are accosted as they walk through the Civic Center or nearby parking garages.

“There’s a woman (county employee) who carries a baseball bat,” said Nancy Norby, a county staffer who described the siege mentality that the homeless have created among Civic Center workers. “We are having to go to the bathroom in pairs,” she added, because homeless men are frequently found in the women’s restroom in her office building.

City Manager David N. Ream said the city’s “vision of order” needs to be maintained through the new ordinance. “We need to ensure the quality of life in Santa Ana.”

But advocates of the homeless argue that the city’s vision is shortsighted.

Yes, they concede, the city has a legitimate right to control the problems related to the homeless population. But banishing transients from Santa Ana only moves the problem to another city without addressing the root causes, they add.

“The homeless issue is an issue that’s not going to be gone just because an ordinance was passed,” said Susan Oakson of the Orange County Homeless Issues Task Force.

Those who work with the homeless--and the homeless themselves-- also predict that enforcement of the new ordinance will be costly.

Given the city’s recent experience with the issue--including payment of about $500,000 to settle legal claims that the city violated the civil rights of the homeless--the new ordinance is likely to end up in court.

And even if the ordinance withstands legal challenge, critics said the homeless likely could not pay any citations they are issued and would only end up back in Santa Ana’s Civic Center and on the streets.

“If they put all that effort into trying to sweep us under the rug, why can’t they apply all that energy to do something useful?” asked Norman Bell, 55, a longtime Civic Center resident who has received $15,000 from the city in two lawsuit settlements.

Under the shade of the pagoda located just outside the Orange County Courthouse, Bell and “Dirty Harry” Bull, 34, discuss their chosen lifestyle.

They are what council members refer to as the “professional homeless.”

“I hate that,” Bull says, shaking his head at being labeled homeless. “I am an outdoorsman.”

With a Bible at his side, he discusses what he believes is his freedom to live in “God’s home”--the great outdoors.

“I consider the 7-Eleven as my kitchen,” Bull said, claiming that he occasionally sweeps in front of the business in exchange for food. Sitting on a bench in the pagoda, Bull remarked: “This is my bedroom, and Flower Park is my back yard. I have a pretty big house.”

Bull, who also won and immediately spent an $11,000 court settlement last year from the city, said he cannot imagine living in a more conventional space.

He said it is absurd for the city to attempt to enforce a new law that the homeless will refuse to obey.

The city is going to send workers to the Civic Center early every morning just to “get this old dirty guy up off the ground,” Bull said. “And if he doesn’t (get up off the ground), you are going to arrest him? C’mon. C’mon, society. You have to give these dudes better things to do.”

And there are others who do not want to leave their “homes” in the government complex.

As he crawls into his tent made of plywood and plastic, Wayne Mangrum, 43, says he is proud of his house. A beer logo rests atop the milk crate that serves as a night stand, and a sheer curtain covers the shelter’s entrance. He credits his wife, Jane, with keeping it tidy.

“We used to have rats,” he says. “Not anymore. Now we have a cat.”

Some of the homeless live in tents, store their property in locked storage bins and eat food donated by churches and other charity groups. Those who do not have manufactured tents use tree planters, patio railings or shopping carts to anchor their makeshift dwellings.

Few of the homeless admit that they panhandle to get by.

“I can be sitting here, and somebody will walk by and slip me a couple of bucks,” Carl Carter said of the donations he receives.

Shaking a stomach that has expanded to the size of a beach ball, Carter, 44, said that he is on “non-working status” due to debilitating illnesses that include a weakened heart. He was transported to the hospital recently after collapsing just outside the County Courthouse, he added.

Mangrum claims that he does not even try to ask for money from strangers because the public is becoming increasingly intolerant of the homeless. So, he said, he recycles aluminum cans when he is not working as a groundskeeper at the city cemetery--a job he received last week through a county agency in exchange for welfare benefits.

Across the plaza, 34-year-old Dino Farrow complained that even when he tried to find work, people did not “have time for us.”

For a few months last year, Farrow said, he lived in an apartment and supported himself by doing auto detail work. When the money ran out two months ago, he returned to the Civic Center and circulated flyers throughout the government complex. But there were no offers.

Now, Farrow said, if strangers stop to ask for directions, he will provide assistance and then ask for “donations” for the homeless.

He smiles as he begins frying chicken over a hibachi grill for that evening’s dinner. “I got four pieces (of chicken) for $1.39. I know how to shop. I’m very economical.”

But without any shower facilities nearby, the homeless have been forced to become inventive.

Debra Burch, 36, said she walks to a barbershop near the intersection of Bristol and Raitt streets to clean up. For $3, she said, she can use hot and cold water, a towel, shampoo and soap.

Others said they use facilities at community shelters, or avail themselves of cold water from the faucets sprouting out of government buildings.

The more difficult problem--particularly during the night--is the lack of toilet facilities. And the homeless say it is the city’s fault that the Civic Center smells of urine.

During the day, the homeless said, they have access to public restrooms in government buildings. But when the offices close, they said, they would rather relieve themselves in the bushes than have to walk to the edge of the Civic Center where the portable toilets are located.

The city moved the toilets last fall to a parking lot near the intersection of Flower Street and Civic Center Drive with hopes that the homeless would move away from the central plaza area.

“I’m not going to hold in my urine to walk a quarter of a mile,” Farrow said. “I am asleep, I wake up and I go to a tree.”

Given the suspected drug dealing that usually occurs after nightfall, a walk through the Civic Center may not even be safe enough even for those who live there, according to some of the residents.

Nor is it safe during the daytime, a group of government employees said recently.

“It’s getting unbelievable,” said Norby, who has worked for the county government for almost a year. “I will not park where I am supposed to, only because I have been panhandled five times. One guy even showed me a knife tucked into his pants.”

In a show of support for the new camping ban, Toni Anderson, an 11-year county employee, has begun circulating a petition to send to the City Council.

“This ordinance is not a solution,” she said, “but it would open up the Civic Center to the citizens.”

Added county staffer Lois Throop: “Our civil rights are being violated too, every minute of every day. We have to be here. This is our workplace.”

And as the sun sets, the area eerily is transformed from a center of government to one of lawlessness.

The irony, one resident observed recently, is that while police cadets practice their marching drills on the plaza level, the drug users and dealers begin fighting with each other just below in the parking garage.

Once the cadets leave, gunshots ring out, and knives are brandished.

“What’s taking place in some of those tents is self-destructive,” said Jonathan Parfrey, a social worker who has seen many of the homeless at the Orange County Catholic Worker shelter.

Parfrey is among those who have criticized the city for handing out lawsuit settlements instead of developing long-term solutions, such as a drug and alcohol rehabilitation center, increased mental health services and a transitional housing program.

In recent years, different groups have offered a variety of proposals to help get the homeless out of the Civic Center, such as expanding the “severe weather” night shelter program at the National Guard armory in Santa Ana, and the establishment of a shower facility and referral center to help direct the homeless to social service programs.

But the city manager said those ideas were rejected because Santa Ana did not want to become the magnet city for all of the county’s homeless.

While pointing to financial assistance the city has provided for the Orange County Rescue Mission, the YWCA’s women’s shelter and the Salvation Army, Ream said the city is “not interested in anything that would encourage more vagrants or homeless” to come to the city.

The homeless problem started to get out of hand in 1985, Ream said, when the Orange County Jail quit accepting misdemeanor prisoners due to overcrowding. Unlike other cities that had their own holding facilities, Santa Ana had none and was forced to handle the homeless who otherwise would be in jail.

Instead of expanding services for the homeless, the city engaged in a series of police and legal actions, including the mass arrests of the homeless on petty charges that were eventually thrown out of court. The result was lawsuits and eventual payments to the homeless to settle the cases.

The latest ordinance--similar to those recently approved in Orange and Fullerton--is Santa Ana’s latest attempt to remove the homeless from the city.

But the ordinances adopted by all three cities are expected to be challenged in court by the Legal Aid Society of Orange County on the basis that a citywide camping ban leaves the homeless with no place else to go.

Meanwhile, members of the Homeless Issues Task Force, the Orange County Bar Assn. and ministers from the downtown churches in Santa Ana are trying to find housing and other program alternatives for the county’s homeless.

Ream, however, doubts that any comprehensive solutions can be found.

“Do you really think this is something that’s going to be resolved comprehensively at the local level? That this is something that (exists just because someone) didn’t think of some idea or that there are not enough well-meaning people?” Ream said. “It’s way beyond that.”

At night, a woman who calls herself “Cindy” lies in her tent on a sleeping bag spread across milk crates. She reads her Bible by the light of a security lamp mounted on a city building.

Describing herself as a “self-made homeless,” the South County woman moved to the Civic Center last Christmas Eve so that she could provide a Bible study class and other support to those who want help.

Cindy said she has seen enough to know that ultimately it is up to the homeless themselves to find their way out of the Civic Center.

“Every time they get up in the morning, God is giving them another day--a chance to get out of this mess they are in,” Cindy said. “They just have to want to. Even God has his limits.”