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I am writing this OP/Ed for Ashley Foster, a +/- 24-year-old third generation homeless woman who passed away in 2024.
I first met Ashley when a small grass fire started along the Santa Ana River bike trail, where many tents were already established. The Santa Ana winds were rapidly whipping the flames close to Ashley’s heels but she selflessly went from tent to tent rousing people up until eventually, along with the help of a few others, everyone got safely out of harm’s way. Ashley was just 17 years old.
Now, I know Ashley’s mother and her mother’s mother and I can say that Ashley inherited the best of both of these gals. The one thing that Ashley faced, that those two gals didn’t have to, was what many homeless call “the dangling carrot.” In the two generations before her, Ashley’s mom and grandma could see that homelessness was theirs, theirs to struggle and suffer through on the streets, surviving with whatever resources they could muster.
In Ashley’s homelessness, she had to cope with the false promises of permanent housing. She had to suffer with the point in time counts that are faked, and case workers and navigators who don’t help at all. She had to struggle through shelters, top heavy with rules that are unfollowable. She had to deal with sexually harassing security guards and overly aggressive police. Ashley had to live in forced isolation that parallels solitary confinement in prison. At the last place she was warehoused, the converted motel Studio 6, the rules laid down there were that tenants could not have visitors come in from the outside nor could they have anyone come in to visit their rooms, or even other tenants who were inside the motel. Not even Ashley’s mother, who lives down the hall from her, would come to visit for fear of being exited from the program.
All the rules, regulations, ordinances, and laws designed to keep you in a revolving go round of warehoused homelessness is even more maddening when you realize that even if you complained with proof, there is no one and no due process to hear you. This was the desperate experience that Ashley had come to know.
I saw Ashley a couple or three months before she took her own life. My friend and I picked her up and took her to the 7-Eleven where she offered to buy me a hot dog and a drink with her usual kindness. But I could see there was something different with her. I had seen it in many homeless before, the years of being beat down with no encouragement, no hope, and whatever hope they did have left was wrung out from them by a world that would rather see them dead than to help them up. Her shoulders weren’t as square as they once were and she didn’t walk as upright as she had on the riverbed.
I said, ” What’s the matter, darlin’?” She began to talk about the corrupt homeless system in Orange County. She said that she felt like she was never going to get anywhere, like she was walking in circles, in a pond of mud, stuck! She felt like she was never going to get out of it. She said when she tried to talk to those who were supposed to help about how she felt, it seems like they didn’t want to hear what she had to say and that no one really cared. I remember one of the last things she said to me, ” Maybe if those Board of Supervisors would just tell the truth about things, maybe something different would happen.”
With the anniversary of Ashley’s death just a few months away, I feel compelled to write about the corruption Ashley spoke of. If anybody deserved to be heard, it would be Ashley.
Ask the average Orange County resident, what is the main issue in Orange County today, many will say homelessness.
Ask the homeless in Orange County what is their main concern today, the overwhelming majority will say corruption.
Corruption starts and eventually ends at the top. It permeates and percolates all the way down to the lowest worker. Although that worker may be inherently honest, they too will fall to corruption if they do nothing to fight or expose it.
This is what Orange County faces today. And it has been going on for so long now that it is embedded in our institutions. To weed it out and get to a place where even the lowliest of society can begin to have faith in our leaders, what is to be done? Honestly, with nothing but their souls to be accountable to, what would compel the Orange County Board of Supervisors to chip away at those very institutions of corruption?
This is my suggestion. Start by treating the homeless as if they are human beings. By this, I mean even in death, the Board of Supervisors shows their contempt for the unhoused. They do this by putting stipulations on those who died homeless. For instance, if a homeless person dies on the sidewalk they are deemed homeless and therefore counted as such. However, if an unhoused person becomes ill, goes to the hospital and expires there, or in a park bathroom, or a converted motel or even in a county funded shelter, they are not counted as homeless. Why? Because they died at an address.
The recording of those who die homeless is done by the coroner’s office, which is run by the Orange County Sheriff’s Department. Hence, their policy of recording homeless deaths is endorsed by their bosses, the County Board of Supervisors.
This dismissing of and disrespect to those homeless lives and their experiences is corruption that is at once both subtle and blatant. Subtle in its diluting of reality and blatant in its callousness and lack of compassion.
I suggest that the Board of Supervisors go home tonight, take a long look in their mirrors and decide where they really stand in this world. But before you supervisors decide, remember Ashley Foster, the +/- 24 year old, third generation homeless woman, who took her own life, not because she found herself in a seemingly endless cycle of homelessness, but because of County endorsed rules that isolated her from friends, family, and most importantly hope.
Incidentally, Ashley Foster was not on any list of those who died homeless.
Patrick Hogan, homeless advocate currently experiencing homelessness
Opinions expressed in community opinion pieces belong to the authors and not Voice of OC.
Voice of OC is interested in hearing different perspectives and voices. If you want to weigh in on this issue or others please email opinions@voiceofoc.org.
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