Evictions Just Part of the Story About Homeless

On Sept. 9, Santa Ana police and city workers came through the Civic Center telling the remaining 60 to 70 homeless that they must take down their tents and move on. They complied and moved on.

When Shelter for the Homeless and Operation Fresh Start first asked the city of Santa Ana to postpone the no-camping ordinance for 60 days, there were about 275 homeless living around the Civic Center area and the city extended the ordinance and gave us more time to help the homeless.

Since then, with the financial assistance of the Orange County Bar Assn. and other funding, we were able to help about 140 homeless relocate.

We provided bus tickets to 36 of them who wanted to go home and helped provide shelter through our program to another 104 who asked for help. There are about 30 former homeless who are still with us, and 22 of them have found full- or part-time employment.

However, of the 60 or so homeless who remained at the Civic Center (many are on drugs), about 40 of them asked us to take them into a drug rehab program, but we did not have a program for them and we could not find room for them at other programs.

We are trying to open a house to care for the homeless who have a dependency problem and we will call it “My Father’s House.”

JIM MILLER

Executive Director

Shelter for the Homeless

Westminster