ORANGE COUNTY PERSPECTIVE : After ‘Victory,’ a Time for Work

Victory in court for Santa Ana does not mean victory over homelessness. There is work to be done.

Santa Ana’s controversial camping ordinance has been upheld by a Superior Court judge, giving the city breathing room in dealing with a problem that burdens it far more than its neighbors in Orange County. Judge James L. Smith has rejected the argument of homeless advocates that prohibiting camping on public property, such as the Civic Center area, is unfair to the homeless.

But the reality is that the problem remains, despite the best efforts of loosely organized groups such as Operation Fresh Start to relocate homeless people who had been camping in the Civic Center before the ordinance took effect last year. And there are questions about how committed the city of Santa Ana really has been to tackling the larger problem.

Like Santa Monica and Santa Barbara, Santa Ana understandably sought to make parks and public spaces safer and more accessible. The rest of the record is pretty dismal. In 1991, for example, the city had to agree to pay $400,000 to homeless people who sued the city after a series of ill-considered police sweeps of the Civic Center. Then there was the less-than-satisfactory attempt by the city’s Recreation and Community Services Agency to get the homeless camped in the Civic Center to move to a designated parking lot.

Imagine how far that $400,000 might have gone for drug or alcohol rehabilitation services for the homeless, or for getting a start on a shelter project. Instead, it was left to advocates and private donors to take up the cause.

The court now has said the city can exercise its muscle, to a degree. What the city must still prove is that it has a heart. The judge upheld Santa Ana’s police power, even for an ordinance clearly aimed at the estimated 200 to 300 homeless people who were living in the Civic Center area. Still there is no satisfactory plan for dealing with Santa Ana’s homeless dilemma.

The city must find one. Consider, for example, that Orange went to work with residents and activists to find an alternative space for Mary McAnena’s five-day-a-week food line, even after closing the operation in W.O. Hart Park.

Why can’t Santa Ana take a similar approach? It may have won a legal round, but now it must fashion a comprehensive strategy that deals compassionately with homelessness.