Santa Ana officials delayed ramping up anti-camping laws because of concerns from some council members that it went too far in a city that’s home to the largest homeless population in Orange County.
The proposed ordinance comes after the Supreme Court overturned a case that required cities to offer shelter to homeless people before they could clear them off the streets.
[Read: Santa Ana to Consider Cracking Down on Homeless Encampments]
In the aftermath of that ruling, at least six cities across OC have stepped up enforcement efforts and enhanced anti-camping laws – a move that activists say will lead to the criminalization of people sleeping on the streets and worsen the crisis.
On Tuesday, Santa Ana council members voted 6-1 to continue a discussion to adopt their own law that would prohibit leaving personal property unattended in public and prohibit sleeping in a public restroom or on a public bench after criticism from some officials.
Councilman Johnathan Hernandez – who voted to continue the discussion – criticized aspects of the proposed ordinance arguing it would increase police interactions with people who are not homeless and pointing to a lack of bed availability at the city’s shelter.
“We should absolutely enforce anti-camping laws if someone is sleeping on a bench, someone is sleeping in front of City Hall, if someone is sleeping on public property, but we should be very mindful that we also only have five beds available,” he said, adding that they should focus on housing.
According to a database on the city website, five of 200 beds at the shelter were available as of Monday.
City Manager Alvaro Nuñez said there is also a county-run shelter in Santa Ana that the city has access to that has 400 beds.
Councilman Ben Vazquez was the dissenting vote and called on the council to sue the OC Sheriff Department to stop them from what he said was dumping homeless people in Santa Ana.
He also said the ordinance would only make the issue worse.
Vazquez said the city should instead increase their quality of life teams – police officers tasked with homeless outreach and addressing illegal camps – and focus on housing.
“What we need is housing. This is going to create a kind of unhoused population that we haven’t seen in Santa Ana, that you see in Skid Row in LA,” he said. “Homelessness should not be a crime. Being poor should not be a crime.”
Councilman Phil Bacerra said the proposed ordinance is not about solving homelessness, but about making public spaces safer for residents.
“What it’s going to do is prioritize our residents who use the buses, use the parks, walk to school, walk to the market. That’s what it’s going to do. It’s going to prioritize our residents over out of town criminals,” he said.
Mayor Valerie Amezcua said the proposal is not about putting everyone in jail but giving police a tool to offer services to people living on the streets and improving residents quality of life.
At the same time, she said she often gets sent pictures of people on the streets running around naked, doing drugs and committing crimes.
“I get the pictures with the guy shooting up – sticking the needle in his arm, the naked person running around, the person with their pants down, defecating,” Amezcua said, adding it’s time city officials do something.
“When I speak to officers, what I hear is those that are on the street, the majority of them are the resistant population. They don’t want to go into a shelter or program. They don’t want to have a curfew. They don’t want to follow the rules.”
She also said suing the sheriff’s department was not the answer.
“You could be tough with the poorest people in this community, but you can’t stand up to a sheriff,” Vazquez responded.
A revised ordinance based on recommendations from elected officials is expected to come back for a vote by council at the Dec. 17 city council meeting.
The debate comes as Santa Ana police officers are clearing out encampments at the privately owned Union Pacific Railroad and as Amezcua repeatedly called to crack down on homeless camps and drug use throughout the year.
[Read: Santa Ana Ramps Up Crackdowns on Homeless Encampments, Clears Railroad]
It also comes two weeks after the November election in which homelessness was one of the biggest issues at play in candidates’ campaigns.
Election results on Tuesday evening showed all the incumbent candidates on track to be reelected.
Tuesday’s Proposed Ordinance at a Glance
The proposed ordinance that came before the council Tuesday would prohibit anyone from staying at the civic center, a public plaza or park between 10 p.m. and 6 a.m. and prohibits blocking access to buildings or sidewalks.
It would also ban sleeping on bus benches or sitting on a bus bench one hour before services begin and immediately after services end – the latter of which Councilwoman Thai Phan criticized.
“They’re bus benches,” she said. “If people are sitting, they’re not doing anything illegal.”
The proposed ordinance would update language in the municipal code to classify sleeping in a car as camping – something both Phan and Councilwoman Jessie Lopez lambasted Tuesday.
Lopez said people shouldn’t be criminalized for being in a situation where they have to sleep in their car and called the proposal poorly written.
“This is the reality of people in our streets. They live in cars. Would you rather have them live in the street or in a park?” she said. “Our role should be to say, how can we help you? Not how do we throw you in jail?”
Bacerra said the proposed laws weren’t meant to punish people who were trying to do better and supported including sleeping in a car in the law’s definition of camping.
“If a cop goes by and sees somebody doing something that looks pretty criminal from their car and they happen to be sleeping in there – this is an opportunity to move that problem out of that neighborhood,” he said.
Violating the law would result in a misdemeanor or infraction.
A police officer could also choose to take anyone who violates the law to get mental health or substance abuse treatment instead of taking them to jail if the person consents to getting help.
Both Phan and Lopez said it shouldn’t be a matter of police discretion to offer mental health or substance abuse treatment but a requirement.
Ramping Up Anti-Camping Laws in Orange County
The proposed law in Santa Ana is among a host of local ordinances that were adopted this year across Orange County in the wake of the Supreme Court ruling this past summer.
Officials in Anaheim, Irvine, Garden Grove, Newport Beach, San Clemente and Aliso Viejo have all revamped their anti-camping laws in recent months.
Councilman David Penaloza noted that other cities are taking action on encampments and said there could be negative impacts if Santa Ana doesn’t do something.
“Guess what that’s going to do? Where is the county jail located? It’s in our city,” he said at Tuesday’s meeting.
The proposed law comes after county leaders reported an over 2,000-person increase in OC’s homeless population since 2022.
[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.
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 – 95 people – happened 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.
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