WESTMINSTER : ‘Camp Homeless’ Group Relocates

A group of homeless people living in an abandoned fire station on Golden West Street were moved to a house in Huntington Beach on Mondayin what city officials hope is the first step toward getting them back on their feet.

The 11 men and one woman will stay in a four-bedroom house for up to 60 days while they try to find work or receive job training, said Jamie Sanchez of the nonprofit group Shelter for the Homeless.

Sanchez said those who find jobs will move to more permanent housing that Westminster-based Shelter for the Homeless provides. Those who cannot find work will be allowed to stay longer in the Huntington Beach house.

“Most of the guys are pretty employable, Sanchez said. “They have not been homeless that long. They are willing to work and they are excited about having a new place to live.”

This month, the Westminster Redevelopment Agency approved $10,000 to be spent for the program. Shelter for the Homeless added $4,000 and Sanchez’s services as case manager.

The formerly homeless people will receive free food, utility services and use of a telephone. But they will be required to look for a job eight hours each day or do volunteer work. In addition, anyone caught using drugs or alcohol will be evicted immediately.

“I’ll give it a shot,” said Frank Murphy, a former resident of “Club Homeless,” the elaborate encampment among thick bushes alongside the San Diego Freeway’s Beach Boulevard exits. Caltrans officials shut down the encampment last month.

After their eviction, about a dozen of the camp residents moved to the abandoned fire station in the 14000 block of Golden West Street at the invitation of Chuck Ross, a 32-year-old Riverside resident who leases the building.

Three other homeless people were living in the 5,200-square-foot structure at the time, said Ross, who operates a tree-stump-grinding business at one side of the building.

City code enforcement officials later declared the building unsafe, but instead of sending the homeless group, which now totaled 16, back to the streets, city officials decided to provide them with temporary housing.

Assistant City Manager Don Anderson said Monday that the former fire station will be boarded up and sealed in order not to attract more homeless people.

“It’s not suitable for habitation,” Anderson said. “The leaseholder told us to secure the building and we expect him to carry through with that.”

Sanchez said 16 people were on the list to be moved to the Huntington Beach house, but only 12 were at the fire station Monday.

One of those who did not show up was Craig Fritts, who wrote “Bush No. 405,” a poem of tribute to Club Homeless.

On Monday, he was at another encampment near the San Diego Freeway, saying he was not accepted as a house resident because he wanted to take along his girlfriend, who had lived with him at the encampment. “Just because I’m homeless, I can’t live with my girlfriend? I don’t understand,” Fritts said.

Fritts also said his rejection was based on the fact that he has a dislocated shoulder, broken arm and other injuries.

But Sanchez said that Fritts had been accepted. His girlfriend was not accepted because she was not on the list of those eligible to join the program, Sanchez said.