Street Residents in No Hurry to Move After Ruling

Off and on since 1988, 24-year-old Chris Ekberg has called the Civic Center home.

He catnaps under trees and lounges on shaded benches, moving from place to place to avoid being rousted by police.

He does this despite a City Council ordinance that bans camping in public places. On Monday afternoon, Ekberg said he planned to continue despite the California Supreme Court’s landmark ruling that the city can, in fact, keep the homeless from sleeping in the street.

“I’m just going to stay low, said Ekberg, whose arms are festooned with garish tattoos. “I’m not going to leave.”

Homeless advocates in Orange County and across the country worried Monday that the court’s ruling will help city officials force Ekberg out, sending him and the city’s estimated 3,000 homeless scurrying from place to place.

“The net effect is going to be to ban homeless people from the state of California,” said Irvine attorney Christopher B. Mears, who helped argue the case before the high court. “What this will do is force more homeless people out of the public areas, and force more homeless people onto doorsteps, into alleyways and onto front lawns.

“You can’t outlaw homelessness,” Mears added. “You can kind of move it around, but you can’t legislate it out of existence.”

But city officials celebrated Monday’s ruling as an endorsement of local government control over public property, saying they do not see the ordinance as anti-homeless. They promised to prosecute those who violate the rules, with up to six months in jail, noting that they have earmarked money for countywide efforts to provide low-income housing.

“It’s important for cities to be able to regulate their public spaces,” Santa Ana Mayor Miguel A. Pulido Jr. said. “I think that’s ultimately what this is about: How to use our public space. What’s the proper use for a park? Or a parking lot? The whole point is that municipalities now have a choice.”

Before the anti-camping ordinance was enacted, hundreds of homeless had set up tents in the Civic Center and government employees complained that the homeless urinated, had sex and sold drugs in plain view.

The City Council responded with an ordinance that banned the use of sleeping bags or blankets and the storage of personal belongings on public property. A separate ordinance, approved later, specifically covered the Civic Center.

The encampments have long ago been taken down, though men and women carrying their life’s possessions remain scattered among the buildings in the city’s government complex.

“The court is saying that you still have your authority as a local government under the California Constitution to protect the health, safety and welfare of your citizens,” City Atty. Edward J. Cooper said Monday. “The court is not going to carve out a certain group of people to have special protection.

“It’s a victory for all local agencies,” he added.

Indeed, cities throughout California and across the nation have followed Santa Ana’s lead in prohibiting the homeless from camping in parks and public plazas. Orange, Fullerton, Long Beach, Santa Monica, West Hollywood, Beverly Hills and Santa Barbara passed similar laws within 18 months of Santa Ana. Federal courts are currently reviewing cases stemming from attempts to regulate the homeless in San Francisco, Miami and Dallas.

“A lot of cities were looking at Santa Ana and seeing the structures and tents at the Civic Center, and thinking it was something that should be addressed before it actually became a problem,” said Robert Franks, city attorney in Orange.

San Francisco Deputy City Atty. Michael G. Olsen, who filed a brief on behalf of 90 California cities supporting Santa Ana’s position, said many homeless people began using their welfare checks to find housing when the city started enforcing the anti-camping rule.

“If . . . this can help one person get housing and get their life in order, that’s terrific,” Olsen said. “And it also has the added benefit of making public places a lot cleaner and a lot safer.”

But Maria Foscarinis, executive director of the National Law Center on Homelessness and Poverty in Washington said that “the bottom line is that those people have no other options.”

“This is really an effort by the city of Santa Ana to drive people from its borders,” she said. “The question is, What will happen to these people? Where will they go? The answer is that they have nowhere to go.”

Witness John Nolan.

As the sun blazed Monday afternoon, Nolan, 61, napped under a shade tree on the Civic Center lawn in a grimy Syracuse University jacket, old corduroys and a blue baseball cap.

“Whether it’s legal or not, I’m just lying down in the park,” he said. “You got to be someplace, right?”

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Homeless Ordinance Timeline

Aug. 3, 1992: Santa Ana passes ordinance aimed at homeless that prohibits camping and storage of personal property in public areas.

Sept. 2: Law takes effect.

Sept. 19: Legal Aid Society of Orange County files lawsuit on behalf of two homeless people and a taxpayer, arguing that law infringes on right of homeless to travel freely and punishes them based on status.

April 8, 1993: Orange County Superior Court upholds ordinance, saying most objections to law are “without merit.”

June 28: 4th District Court of Appeal issues injunction to halt enforcement of law pending ruling on ordinance.

Feb. 3, 1994: Court of Appeal strikes down ordinance as unconstitutional, ruling it “cruel and unusual punishment” of homeless.

April 24, 1995: State Supreme Court upholds 1992 Santa Ana ordinance in 6-1 vote, ruling it does not violate constitutional rights of homeless.

Source: Times reports

Researched by LILY DIZON / Los Angeles Times