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A host of Santa Ana officials say it’s time start enforcing anti-camping laws following a supreme court ruling this year that clears the way for cities to crack down on encampments.
The ruling has led elected officials at recent city council meetings in Santa Ana to weigh in on how best to address homelessness – giving residents a look at where local politicians stand on one of the city’s biggest issues ahead of the November election.
Mayor Valerie Amezcua, who is running for reelection, said at a public meeting last month city officials have to take a stand and pointed to homeless people cutting the Union Pacific fence on Borchard Avenue and moving back into the lot.
“When we put up a fence they’re going to do the same exact thing,” she said at the Aug. 6 meeting, adding that Councilman Phil Bacerra likes to call them “criminals.”
“What we need to do is go in there, clean it up again. If they’re under the influence, take them to jail. If they’re breaking the law, take them to jail. If they’re not, we offer them services. If they don’t want to take them we tell them to move along.”
Cities throughout Orange County have long grappled with homeless encampments on railroad tracks because the rail lines are owned by private companies.
[Read: OC Cities Struggle With Resources to Clean Up Railroad Homeless Camps]
At the following meeting, Councilman Ben Vazquez – who is running against Amezcua for the mayor seat – said not all homeless people are criminals.
“Yes, I agree, when there are laws broken and there is violent crime there should be enforcement if they are houseless or not,” he said at the Aug. 20 meeting. “But there’s different aspects to houselessness that we need to look at.”
Vazquez said officials should promote rent control to prevent homelessness, there should be more quality of life teams – police officers tasked with homeless outreach and addressing illegal camps – in every corner of the city and the city can’t let the Sheriff’s department drop homeless people in Santa Ana.
Bacerra pushed back on Vazquez’s comments saying no one said all homeless people are criminals, but there is a problem with encampments.
He also told his colleague to stop what he considered campaigning from the dais while supporting more quality of life teams out in the streets.
“All you gotta do is drive through your ward, Councilmember Vasquez, and you can see it along Bristol,” he said at the Aug. 20 meeting. “It was encampment after encampment after encampment. It’s not that the rents are too damn high. The folks out there were too damn high.”
Addressing Homeless Encampments in Santa Ana
Councilman Vazquez said homelessness impacts residents across the city, but focusing on punishing encampments won’t solve any problems.
“When you paint a picture of the unhoused being somebody who’s medicated or somebody who has mental issues – not families and not children – it really takes away from creating good policy,” he said in an interview.
Echoing her colleague, Councilwoman Jessie Lopez said solutions for addressing homelessness requires paying attention to the housing crisis in Santa Ana.
“It’s not enough to simply relocate people — we must provide real support by focusing on affordable housing,” Lopez said in an interview.
Lopez, who is running for reelection, added that quality of life teams offer residents an outlet for mental health services, another aspect of the homeless crisis she’s publicly advocated for in the past.
“The solutions are within reach; all that’s needed is the political will to make them happen,” she said.
Amezcua, Bacerra and Councilmembers Thai Viet Phan, Johnathan Hernandez and David Penaloza did not return requests for comment.
OC Cities Cracking Down on Encampments
The debate in Santa Ana comes after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned a case requiring cities to offer shelter to homeless people before they were allowed to push them off the streets.
[Read: Is Orange County About To Enforce Anti-Camping Laws Again?]
It also comes after Gov. Gavin Newsom called on city officials to clear out encampments across the state.
Since the Supreme Court ruling earlier this year, officials in San Clemente, Aliso Viejo and Garden Grove have either bolstered local anti-camping laws or called on staff to draft such a law.
Last week, Newport Beach officials voted to amend their law to include greater prohibitions on sleeping in public places and blocking public rights
[Read: Newport Beach Officials Bolster Anti-Camping Law After Supreme Court Ruling]
In July, Amezcua said U.S. District Judge David Carter gave the city “his blessing” on homelessness enforcement but officials there have yet to call on a discussion to review their encampment laws.
Carter was the presiding judge over the series of homeless lawsuits that swept the county in 2018, which eventually forced local officials throughout Orange County to build homeless shelters and fund various outreach efforts.
[Read: OC Supervisors to Revisit Legal Settlements Limiting Anti-Camping Enforcement]
Meanwhile, advocates warn efforts to clear our encampments could lead to the criminalization of people sleeping on the streets – something they say will worsen the crisis.
Homeless in Santa Ana
Earlier this year, county leaders reported 7,322 homeless people in Orange County – a close to 2,000-person increase in the county’s homeless population since 2022.
Over 4,100 of those people were sleeping on the streets.
[Read: Orange County Homeless Population Continues Growing]
According to the latest count, there are 1,428 homeless people in Santa Ana – the highest out of any city in OC – and 871 of them are unsheltered.
The 2022 count reported 990 homeless people in Santa Ana with over 500 of them unsheltered.
The number of people dying on the streets in OC is also going up.
This year, the Orange County Sheriff’s department released a report that showed close to 500 homeless people died in 2022 – an increase of 25.6% from 2021.
About 19% of those deaths or 95 people died in Santa Ana, according to the report.
Hosam Elattar is a Voice of OC reporter and corps member with Report for America, a GroundTruth initiative. Contact him at helattar@voiceofoc.org or on Twitter @ElattarHosam.
Hugo Rios is a Voice of OC reporting fellow. Contact him at hugo.toni.rios@gmail.com or on Twitter @hugoriosss.
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