Voice of OC (https://voiceofoc.org/tag/brooke-weitzman/)
Anaheim officials cleared out homeless encampments at Maxwell Park Friday morning and sent roughly 30 people to the newly opened 200-bed emergency homeless shelter near Angel Stadium four days before Christmas, as part of a settlement in a federal lawsuit.
At least 575 new homeless shelter beds will be built in north Orange County under a series of court-enforceable settlement agreements reached in recent days between attorneys for homeless people and the cities of Anaheim, Orange and Tustin.
South Orange County also is set to be brought into the federal case, as the judge expressed frustration at the lack of a south county shelter site.
U.S. District Court Judge David O. Carter warned the County of Orange and its cities they will need to make significant progress on plans for new emergency shelter housing for the homeless, or face a possible court ruling or temporary injunction stopping the enforcement of anti-camping laws.
The hearing is in response to the closure of armory shelters, which pushed over 200 homeless people into local communities where it’s illegal to camp in public.
The judge, David O. Carter, pointed to Santa Ana and Anaheim residents and businesses who, he said, are grappling with hundreds of homeless people who formerly lived at the Santa Ana riverbed but now are in their cities due to a shelter shortage.
The move sends the issue back to south county mayors to recommend another site or sites for a homeless shelter.
The homeless people who slept in the Santa Ana Civic Center for years were cleared out by Thursday afternoon and people can’t sleep there anymore after much of the area was blocked off by chain link fences.
County workers, along with the Santa Ana Police Department, began clearing out segments of the Civic Center homeless camp Monday as healthcare workers and city contractors started health and other assessments of roughly 200 people living there.
At least 250 people protested Sunday against plans for a homeless shelter at a former military base in Irvine, raising concerns about drug use and potential risks to children in nearby athletic fields and neighborhoods. Supervisor Shawn Nelson said no drug use or sex offenders would be allowed in the shelter.