Voice of OC (https://voiceofoc.org/tag/david-o-carter/)
County Supervisor and CalOptima Director Andrew Do is criticizing the county health insurance agency for the poor and elderly for being too slow in implementing medical teams that will treat homeless people on the streets, just as CalOptima is being asked to appear in a federal court hearing over homeless policies next month.
Five South Orange County cities will head to Federal court after a lawsuit filed by attorneys alleged dumping of homeless people and blamed the region’s lack of shelters.
Homeless people now will be visited and treated by medical teams on the streets after the CalOptima Board of Directors unanimously voted to immediately begin the program throughout Orange County.
U.S. District Judge David O. Carter, after years of rapid growth in Orange County homeless deaths, issued an emergency request this week describing a “public health crisis in the County leading to the deaths of hundreds of people experiencing homelessness.”
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.
At the hearing, Santa Ana officials said they were able to design and construct the new 200-bed shelter in less than a month and that it will be opening soon at a location they haven’t yet disclosed publicly.
A unanimous Anaheim City Council has approved $400,000 partly to ramp up visible, private security and park rangers at city parks where large numbers of homeless people are known to visit.
Santa Ana is moving ahead to open a new 200-bed homeless shelter by the end of the year, following unanimous Santa Ana City Council approval of a one year operations contract. The location hasn’t been announced.
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.