Orange County residents have expressed concern over the county’s decisions to set up homeless camps in their communities.
According to the Los Angeles Times, Orange County supervisors have “voted to spend more than $70 million to house the homeless,” which will involve both building permanent housing and possible camps in “Irvine, Laguna Niguel and Huntington Beach on county-owned land.”
In response, the Irvine City Council will be suing the county to stop the proposal following a unanimous vote on Tuesday. Irvine’s Mayor Donald P. Wagner wondered aloud at a special meeting how setting up public homeless camps will solve the problem. Other Orange County residents feel that the supervisors should look elsewhere: Los Angeles.
“This freaks me out. I moved to O.C. because I thought it would be a safe place. Now it’s getting more and more like L.A.,” said Rob Howard, an office manager in Irvine. “Who wants tons of traffic, high prices and all kinds of unwanted people around you?”
Ann Huang, a computer programmer in Laguna Niguel, said she did not imagine a problem like this could happen in O.C.
“When we think of a homeless crisis, we think of an urban environment that’s overcrowded and full of noise and chaos. You don’t think of it happening in a place like O.C,” Huang said. “I understand that we should be sensitive to needy people. But definitely, I’m going to fight any kind of facility that’s close to our towns and kids.”
Other residents support helping the homeless, but think they should be moved somewhere else.
“Finally, the county is taking action — doling out this kind of money. But they must understand that they can use this money to go buy land elsewhere, maybe the Inland Empire, to relocate the homeless,” said Mark Smith of Huntington Beach. “We just can’t lower our housing values with this population nearby,”
Supervisor Shawn Nelson said county officials have been put between a rock and a hard place trying to please everyone.
“I thought it made more sense to have a manageable plan before we start clearing the riverbed homeless population, but no one cooperated,” he said. “Everyone points to somewhere else. Every community thinks we ought to solve this crisis, and every community thinks, ‘Why not go to another spot?'”
“Some people are creating a false narrative that these cities are being picked on. But we only have a short list of locations we can use,” he added “No one on this board takes glee in making this decision. But we have to have a place for people to go to. We are exiting these people out of the riverbed with no options for them, and we’re obligated to step up.”
The extent of the homeless problem in Orange County became a viral sensation last year when a resident cycled through the Santa Ana River Trail, exposing the hundreds of homeless encampments: