Countywide : Miami Case Cheers Homeless Advocates

An unprecedented federal court decision in Miami this week ordering “safe zones” where the homeless can eat and sleep without interference by police or city officials has bolstered a similar case pending in Southern California, an Orange County lawyer representing the homeless said Tuesday.

“I am really happy today, I must admit,” said Harry Simon, an attorney for the Legal Aid Society of Orange County, which joined the American Civil Liberties Union and the National Lawyers Guild two months ago in lawsuits on behalf of the homeless. The cities of Fullerton, Orange, Santa Ana, Long Beach and Santa Barbara were sued on the grounds that their ordinances affecting homeless people are unconstitutional.

The legal arguments used in the Miami case, that the homeless have nowhere else to go and “anti-homeless” ordinances result in “cruel and unusual punishment,” were used as the basis for the California lawsuit.

But city attorneys who are defending recent ordinances that prohibit the homeless from camping or sleeping in public places downplayed the Miami court ruling.

“I am not overwhelmed by a trial court decision in another jurisdiction,” Fullerton City Atty. Kerry Fox said. “It’s nice having another trial court in another jurisdiction agree with (homeless advocates’) theories, but it’s not persuasive and it’s not binding. It’s probably helpful to them, but I don’t think it’s going to change things.”

Santa Ana City Atty. Edward J. Cooper also argued that the U.S. Supreme Court has already ruled that the federal government has the right to keep demonstrators from camping in Lafayette Park across from the White House.

“We are not rounding people up and moving people around,” Cooper said, adding that no citations have been issued to the homeless since the anti-camping ordinance took effect in September.

But Simon said the Supreme Court case does not apply, because it concerned “freedom of expression, as opposed to a more fundamental right to live.”

The Miami federal court’s ruling protects the rights of the homeless, who have no access to public shelters, to eat, sleep and perform other “harmless” activities in public places.

The ACLU maintained that Miami city officials were punishing people who had no place to go and likened the city’s policy on the homeless to “pest control.”

City officials denied arresting the homeless without cause, claiming they are picked up only when they have committed crimes.