ACLU Monitoring Affect of OC Maintenance Work on Homeless in Santa Ana River

FOUNTAIN VALLEY, CA—The American Civil Liberties Union is monitoring how maintenance work being done by the Orange County Public Works Department along the Santa Ana River trail affects the homeless population, officials said today.

"We've been monitoring the practices of Orange County and the various cities that have memorandums of understanding with the county of Orange," said Eve Garrow, a policy analyst with the ACLU.

"We get concerned when the county or local city governments go down to the river bed and issue tickets for camping or sleeping in public because many people literally have nowhere else to go," Garrow said.

"It's a violation of their civil rights," she said. "We also hope they're respectful and give people plenty of notice because there are people in the riverbed who are disabled and need help moving their tents and property when the county needs to do its maintenance work."

The ACLU is "not against the county doing maintenance work, but the devil is in the details -- it's how they do it," Garrow said.

The county is restricting public access between Katella Avenue and Hesperian Street near the Garden Grove (22) Freeway along the east side of the Santa Ana River, according to county spokeswoman Jean Pasco.

The bike-pedestrian path on the west side is meant to be accessible to the public, but the east side was not intended for the same purpose, Pasco said.

Officials are working to ensure public safety along the river, Pasco said. Keeping the east side of the river as a maintenance road helps police and employees protect public safety along the river, she added.

The county recently closed all the maintenance access gates on the east side of the river and are fixing damaged fencing in that area, Pasco said. But the west side of the river will remain open to the public.

Garrow said the homeless population stood at 4,500 countywide last year.
"The county has about 2,000-plus emergency and transitional beds," she said. "And some of those are not in operation now because the cold-weather shelters are closed, so that takes about 400 beds out of circulation."

The ACLU's view is that many are homeless "with no alternative," Garrow said, adding, "33 out of 34 cities criminalize homelessness in some way."

County officials should work harder to bringing more affordable housing to the area because the waiting list for publicly subsidized housing for the indigent is eight years for some, Garrow said.

Google Map Image, Katella and Santa Ana River