A Federal Boost for the Homeless

In Orange County, where the battle to find shelter for the homeless usually is measured a few beds at a time, a $7.2-million federal grant for this cause is especially welcome. The award, announced last week by the Housing and Urban Development Department, will be allocated over three years. Recipient organizations say they will now be able to double the number of beds for the county’s homeless, to 1,600. But even that means Orange County will have beds for only about 10% of the needy. San Diego County, with about 50% fewer homeless, has beds for roughly one in two.

Orange County has made progress in recent months, however. After a dispute between the city of Buena Park and the pastor of the First Southern Baptist Church over his allowing an encampment of about two dozen homeless people on church grounds, the church’s parishioners voted to build a shelter on church property that would meet city demands.

In Westminster, the city agreed to grant $30,000 to upgrade a three-bedroom home to provide temporary housing for senior citizens suddenly needing shelter. As in Buena Park, volunteers are expected to provide much of the labor, an effort that deserves support throughout the community.

The man who until recently headed the county’s Homeless Task Force said the federal funds represent the single biggest award ever for homeless services in Orange County. A coalition of nonprofit groups, many of which partly depend on the county but which provide far more to the community than they receive in public funding, joined with the county in applying for the grant. It was a good example of cooperation.

Some of the federal money will provide child care so parents can take jobs. It is jobs that can enable them to find housing of their own, the best long-term solution to the problem.

Orange County still needs many more shelters and better coordination among cities and the county to ensure that laws against camping in public areas and other ordinances do not push one community’s problem across city lines. But the funds from the federal government offer an opportunity to help a segment of the community that has been too often ignored.