Police task force takes a kind approach to the homeless

It’s about 5 a.m. on a Thursday and Huntington Beach police officers Gabe Ricci and Joe Schloss are about an hour into their 12-hour shift with the department’s Homeless Task Force.

Three or four days a week, beginning at 4 a.m., the two officers scout the city looking for homeless people. They don’t aim to harass or arrest them but rather to help, offering referrals to temporary shelters and handing out blankets and other supplies.

Of course, as with any sort of police work, arrests may be necessary.

The night before, the Police Department received reports of a homeless “person of interest” in a crime.

Ricci and Schloss patrol the beach area but see no sign of the man.

They next drive to a bus stop on Pacific Coast Highway across from the Pacific City retail and dining center. There a man is sleeping on the cement next to a trash can.

The 53-year-old identifies himself as Lee and tells officers he has a doctor’s appointment later that day.

“I have a lot of health issues and now they think I might have cancer,” says Lee, who shares that he has been homeless for 22 years.

The two officers offer their condolences before making arrangements for a bus pass for him.

“There’s a bond now with these people that wasn’t there before this task force started,” Ricci says.

The department’s task force began in September, after the city created its own Homeless Task Force in March 2015. The city has worked to study the best way to police and house, as well as coordinate services and provide health services for, the homeless in Huntington Beach. The mission of the Police Department’s task force is to provide resources.

The two next meet John Henry and his girlfriend Katherine Natumboh, who both share a single blanket, at the same bus stop.

The officers offer Henry, who has been homeless for 15 years, help with finding housing, but he turns it down, saying that Natumboh prefers the streets and he would rather stay by her side.

A bit frustrated, the two officers get back in their patrol car and respond to reports of two people sleeping in their car on the street outside a Walmart.

They offer the occupants, a man and his girlfriend who said they had been there for “a few days,” a car battery so they can get back on the road.

“We don’t want to just put a band-aid on the problems,” Police Chief Robert Handy said. “We want to fix them. We try to go out with the philosophy of not constantly arresting but what we can do to help to solve this problem. If they refuse our help and continue to be the problem, then they go into the system.”

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A RISING PROBLEM

More than 200 homeless people live in Surf City, according to a recent study by the Huntington Beach Police Department. This compares with about 130 in 2013.

The 2015 Orange County Homeless County and Survey Report estimated that within the county are nearly 4,500 homeless people.

The survey, which divided the county into five districts that each included about five cities, found that the district that includes Huntington Beach had the most homeless people in the county, at 698 people. The district that included Anaheim was second with 646 people.

Karen Williams, president and chief executive of 2-1-1 Orange County, a social services organization that helped put together the survey, said the high numbers in the Huntington Beach area, which includes Costa Mesa, Newport Beach, Irvine and Stanton, might have to do with the increase of sober living homes in the coastal areas.

“People fall out of those sober living homes and then become homeless,” she said. “I think the other part that we’ve seen is that as the economy has become better, people are increasing their rental rates. People who were just holding on before are now falling into homelessness.”

Handy said the spike in the number of homeless people in the city could be a result of prison realignment, an attempt by the state to reduce its state prison population by shifting people to county jails.

“A lot of the people that we’re running into who are homeless also have criminal records, mental illnesses, substance abuse issues and other things we didn’t see as much of in the past,” Handy said. “We don’t have it scientifically proven that that’s why, but that seems to be, to our officers, part of what we are experiencing.”

According to the Orange County Homeless Count & Survey Report, 13% of homeless people in the county identified themselves as having substance abuse issues.

Handy said Police Department experienced an increase of about 25% from 2014 to 2015 in calls for service related to the homeless — including complaints of people sleeping on doorsteps, urinating in public and trespassing.

Lt. Kelly Rodriguez said the department’s task force has helped house 18 people since January.

But she said it’s important to understand that some people don’t want to get off the streets, perhaps because they like living “off the grid.”

“Part of the problem with some people is they will only go to certain cities,” said Rodriguez regarding the struggle to get the homeless into housing. “We might be able to offer a home in Santa Ana or Long Beach, but the person says, ‘No, I only want to live in fill-in-the-blank.’ That’s been a little eye-opening and also challenging. It’s interesting that some of them can be so service-resistant.”

Huntington Beach has been struggling to identify areas where more low-income housing can be created and has until September to identify sites in order to comply with state regulations, which mandates the city identify 1,353 affordable units.

However, City Atty. Michael Gates sent a letter to the state last month challenging the requirement. He argued in the letter that “flawed data” was used in calculating the number.

The city has yet to hear back from the state.

Rodriguez noted that the task force officers have with them an intake sheet, “so if the homeless are willing to talk to them about what their issues are or why they’re homeless and they want help, they’ll go in one file. If they don’t, then it’s just documented that the officers contacted them and who they are and what they’re doing.”

Out of 70 contacts in February, only 12 people said they wanted help.

Rodriguez said Schloss’ and Ricci’s efforts on the streets are helping the homeless become more trusting of police and

compliant most of the time.

“Initially, they might be upset about the police contacting them, but now, even if they’re doing something bad and we have to do a criminal citation, they still have that respect for us, knowing we have a job to do but we’re also there as a resource for them,” said Ricci, who has been with the department for 18 years.

By starting their shift at 4 a.m., the officers are more likely to find people “coming down” from drugs or alcohol and not “going up,” meaning less of a chance for violence, Rodriguez said.

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‘I SEE FEAR’

At about 7 a.m., the officers say it’s time to meet one of their favorite daily contacts.

Carlo Tolle smiles as the officers wake him outside the Rubio’s eatery near Beach Boulevard and Terry Drive, where he said the owner has allowed him to sleep while the business is closed.

The 42-year-old said he was excited to share his good news with the officers, whom he considered his friends.

“I got my drivers license,” he said, emerging from under his blanket, a big grin on his face.

Tolle, who said he found himself on the streets of Surf City two years ago after he lost his 12-year job as a loan officer and his sister died, said he was planning on taking a job with Uber, thanks to his new license and a friend’s help leasing a car.

“I was depressed,” he said. “After a while of being on the street, my spirits got up and I learned life was worth living.... Other homeless people don’t understand that these officers are really well-trained. They don’t understand the psychology. They’re looking out for us.”

Tolle, who said he often befriends restaurant and store workers who end up giving him leftover food, said not all homeless people have criminal records. He said he’s been sober all his life.

For others, wrong deeds may have contributed to their lives on the streets.

Chuck Williams, who has been homeless for the last decade and is also one of the officers’ regular contacts, said he had been incarcerated for various crimes and lost contact with most of his family.

He said he’s been also been homeless in Los Angeles County and in other states but felt the most comfortable in Huntington Beach.

He has also begun crossing into Westminster, but the officers said they can still talk to their contacts outside city limits.

“Normally I don’t have many belongings with me, and in Huntington Beach, just walking along with my backpack and a smile is fine,” said the 58-year-old, who clutched $12 in his hand — the most money he said he’s had in a while — as he walked down a trail behind the Westminster Mall in Westminster at about 8 a.m. “The weather here is great, so it makes it easier to be outside all the time. I can cruise around and be almost invisible. When you stand out, that tends to be a problem. I like to remain invisible.”

Some residents say they feel unsafe with homeless people around.

Terry Trabant, a 70-year-old resident who has lived in his Surf City home for 54 years, said homeless people often dig through the trash cans in the alleyway between his home and a shopping complex.

Technically, the garbage bins aren’t on his property, but the loud noise from the digging has disturbed his sleep.

“I have gone out myself and tried to run the homeless out but it just hasn’t worked,” he tells Ricci and Schloss. “It’s unnerving because this is where I live and I don’t want to put up with this stuff.”

Chuck Williams doesn’t understand why people consider the homeless, even those who seem to be minding their own business, dangerous.

“The way the public perceives homeless people, I get the feeling that we’ve done something in their eyes that would cause them to be uncomfortable with us around,” he said. “I see fear. Imagine all the hours these officers have to put in because these people fear me or others in the same situation as me. I’ve never done anything to hurt anyone since I’ve been homeless.”