After blocking Orange County’s plans to open a cold-weather shelter in Downtown Santa Ana earlier this month, the federal court judge presiding over the dispute allowed the county to open the shelter in a different location in the city at an Oct. 21 hearing.
“It’s just inhumane to have people sit in the rain,” U.S. District Judge David O. Carter said during the hearing. “I can’t let people sleep out in the rain because of a squabble between the county and city.”
The newly approved shelter will be located at the National Guard Armory at 612 E. Warner Avenue.
The judge previously issued a temporary ruling Oct. 14 to stop the county’s plan to open a cold-weather shelter—run in partnership with Salvation Army—saying the city had enough shelter beds.
“Although I have tremendous respect for the Court, the drastic reversal by Judge Carter to allow the County of Orange to force yet another homeless shelter on the people of Santa Ana is a slap in the face of our community,” Sarmiento said. “The city and people of Santa Ana shouldn’t have to take on this responsibility and the impacts to our streets, neighborhoods and businesses time and again, while more affluent cities do nothing.”
At the hearing, Carter also pushed local officials to lower restrictions on its existing shelters.
Carter said in the most recent hearing he hopes to see each part of the county has its own “low-barrier, walk-up” shelters for the winter months.
Santa Ana officials responded they would lower their restrictions at the city’s facility, opening enough beds for short-term stays. Carter called on the county Board of Supervisors to discuss doing the same at their own facilities.
Last week, city officials expressed concern in a statement that a new cold-weather shelter may draw homeless individuals from other parts of Orange County. Also, unlike year-round shelters, this type of seasonal shelter closes during the day and could leave individuals from other parts of the county “without a familiar place to go during the day.”
Sarmiento said the city “has more than done its part” to help address homelessness in the county by operating its own shelter, hosting the county’s shelter, and “leading in the creation of new affordable housing.”
“However, our community cannot bear the responsibility and the impacts of caring for virtually the entire homeless population of Orange County,” he said in the statement. “It is time for other cities to step up and do their part, and for the County to look elsewhere for its future shelters.”
Before the first shelter site was blocked earlier this month, Sarmiento and City Manager Kristine Ridge told the judge that the city already has sufficient capacity to serve its homeless population—with 425 beds at a county shelter on Yale Street and 200 beds at the city’s shelter on Carnegie Avenue.
Currently, there are about 990 homeless individuals in Santa Ana, according to a point-in-time count released by Orange County in May. The report also shows that the city’s total homeless population dropped 44 percent—from 1,769 to 990—over the past three years.
It’s unclear if the shelter will be opened this year, as county stated at the hearing that it has not been able to find an operator after Salvation Army backed out of the agreement altogether last week after the first site was rejected by the judge.
OC Supervisor Katrina Foley, whose district covers Santa Ana, did not respond to a request for comment by press time.
