Another Twenty Four people died “without fixed abode” in OC in May, their names are:
Bryce DAILEY who died on May 1st in Huntington Beach
Valerie RAMIREZ who died on May 4th in Santa Ana
Damien LAMERAY who died on May 6th in Huntington Beach
Julio HERNANDEZ who died on May 7th in Anaheim
Zunqi ZHOU who died on May 7th in Irvine
Leobardo ESTRADA who died on May 8th in Orange
Larry BECKEY who died on May 8th in Buena Park
Ida WOLFF who died on May 9th in Costa Mesa
Shirley GOMEZ who died on May 9th in Anaheim
Anthony ALACIO who died on May 11th in Garden Grove
Cesar LOYA LEON who died on May 17th in Anaheim
Adnan HASANOVIC who died on May 18th in Anaheim
Rocky VILLANUEVA who died on May 22nd in Santa Ana
Andrew CAVALIERE who died on May 23rd in Huntington Beach
Daniel SHEAHAN who died on May 24th in Fountain Valley
Estevan JAIMES who died on May 25th in Santa Ana
Alfred MENDEZ who died on May 25th in Orange
Michael CAMARENA who died on May 25th in Santa Ana
Tina ABBOTT who died on May 27th in Fountain Valley
Paul OGLE who died on May 28th in Santa Ana
Charles GRANADOS who died on May 28th in Anaheim
Robert MIKLICH JR. who died on May 29th in Anaheim
Sonny PEREZ who died on May 29th in Fullerton
Joshua WILLIAMS who died on May 30th in Garden Grove
The number of deaths, 173 for the year through May 31st, thankfully continues to be significantly lower than in the previous two years when it was 228 in 2023, and 205 in 2022. However, in 2021 it had been only 155 for the same period of time and every year before that it was lower still. In 2019 for instance the number of deaths had been only 85 at this point in the year.
Still, this year we are experiencing both an improvement over previous years, and perhaps a temptation to “declare victory” somehow and to start looking to fall back into bad habits.
I say this because I hear rumblings of the County trying to hand (back) cold weather response to various ad hoc coalitions of religious congregations rather than do much on a county wide or regional government level anymore.
And I do think that this would be a tragic mistake.
Consider simply that at its best, Fullerton’s previous religious Emergency Shelter Network provided temporary housing for 12 people who otherwise would have been homeless, who would be attended to in 2 week turns by six local congregations.
Here, it should be noted that none of the three Catholic Parishes in Fullerton participated in that program, in good part because none of them would have the facilities to house 12 people on their campus for more than a day or two.
Indeed, if one were looking for “Back to the Future” response for homelessness, Catholic Parishes, generally with large gymnasiums / parish halls, are generally far more suited for the other common 1980s-era approach of each parish accommodating 60-100 people sleeping in their parish halls for 1x a week, with the burden shared by 6-7 parishes or otherwise churches with similar facilities: Schedules would be disseminated, everyone would soon know that it was Wednesday, one would head to _________.
The problem with both these solutions, and especially with the 12 people shared by six congregations approach is that scale is wildly wrong. The 60-100 people shared among 7 congregations or other facilities with gyms is better, but still not enough.
By the newest PIT Count, there were 208 unsheltered people sleeping nightly on the streets of Fullerton. Sheltering 12 of them would reduce the problem by 5.8%, leaving 94.2% of the city’s unsheltered homeless population still on the streets.
By the latest PIT Count, county wide the number of unsheltered people sleeping on our streets is 4,074.
Since there is time — 6 months till the end of the year, 4-6 months before cold weather assistance would be needed – let me propose the following instead:
That the County ask the State for funding to put every single one of the people who were unsheltered in the county into a hotel room.
For six months, the cost would be 4,000 people x $100/day x 180 days = $72M
For a full year, the cost would be 4,000 people x $100/day x 365 days = $146M
Statewide, assuming half of the State’s 160K people who are homeless are unsheltered, so 80K, the cost would be:
80K people x $100/day x 180 days = $1.4B
80K people x $100/day x 365 days = $2.9B
And the problem would be solved. Even for the city of Fullerton, the ask to provide hotel vouchers for the city’s unsheltered population of 200 people would cost $3.6M (for 180 days), or $7.3M (for 365 days). That’s well within the capacity of the city’s representatives to be able to reasonably ask of the State particularly if it would for all practical purposes end street homelessness in the city.
Yes outreach would be needed, triage would be needed, but the outreach workers would actually have something to offer the people they were reaching out to. Right now, they largely have nothing.
And the problem would be solved quite cleanly, reasonably and completely as opposed to working really hard to convince 6 congregations to try to participate in a solution that, at best, would remedy 6% of a problem that effect truly everyone.
The County and even the State is capable of approaching and solving this problem both humanely and at its proper scale. We just have to try.
Fr. Dennis Kriz, OSM, Pastor St. Philip Benizi Catholic Church, Fullerton.
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