The Tait council majority’s action on two agenda items last week set the table for the repeal of the city’s ordinance against camping and storing personal property on public property, a law the council adopted in 2013 as a tool for preventing homeless encampments from overrunning city parks. The make-up of a new homelessness task force – Councilman Jose Moreno’s brainchild – created by the council majority makes clear that repeal is the intended result.
Mayor Tom Tait and his council allies – Councilmembers Jose F. Moreno, Denise Barnes and James Vanderbilt – voted to table re-affirmation of the anti-camping ordinance, and then voted to create a homelessness task force stacked with advocates for repealing the ban on camping in public areas such as city parks.
The first item was Councilwoman Kris Murray’s request to have the city council re-affirm support for the existing anti-camping ordinance and current suite of services aimed at steering the homeless out of that life.
Mayor Tom Tait criticized Murray’s item as “premature” and “continuing doing the same thing” – a disingenuous characterization. Anaheim residents are fed-up with the present ineffective under-enforcement of the anti-camping ordinance. Murray’s motion affirmed the anti-camping ordinance that Anaheim residents want the city to enforce so they can enjoy their public parks and end the criminal activity that accompanies these encampments. On what planet does that equate to “continuing doing the same thing”?
Furthermore, Murray’s proposed re-affirmation also encompassed the “Coming Home Anaheim,” a Tait initiative he announced in his 2014 State of the City speech – and which has actually been a success: nearly 800 Anaheim homeless have been re-united with family or placed in housing. Yet, the mayor’s remarks made it seem as if the city is floundering on that front.
However, logic is unnecessary when one has the votes, and Mayor Tait had the votes to “table” re-affirmation of the anti-camping law until after Moreno’s homeless task force makes its recommendations; tabling is a parliamentary maneuver allowing the majority to vote against something without technically doing so.
Next, the council took up Moreno’s request to form a Homeless Policy Working Group. Employing anodyne progressive-speak, Moreno presented it as bringing together “people from different perspectives” to research “best practices” in order to develop a city homelessness policy – which the District 3 councilman apparently believes is lacking.
At Moreno’s request, for the last six months, at council meeting after council meeting, he and his colleagues have received reports on the homeless situation and its underlying factors, presentations on the city’s integrated services and briefings on best practices. It’s highly unlikely the working group discover or hear anything of significant that hasn’t already come to the councils attention.
Judging from the composition of the working group and comments by Tait and Moreno, it policy outcomes are already baked into this enterprise. Moreno described the working group as “very balanced” but the reality is it is stacked with opponents of the anti-camping ordinance.
Leading the working group is Councilman Jose Moreno, who supported repealing the anti-camping ordinance during his council campaign and has been critical of it as a councilman. Other working group members include:
Mike Robbins, who has been lobbying the council for months to not only allow the homeless to camp in city parks, but to open the park restrooms 24 hours a day. Robbins’ hounding of county homeless czar Susan Price is the reason she’s declined to participate in the working group – and without the county’s involvement the working group has little point to it.
Eve Garrow from the ACLU the guardian angel of Orange County’s homeless camps. The ACLU has done more than any single entity has prevented the County of Orange from enforcing the law and clearing the huge encampments along the Santa Ana River bed. The ACLU advocates the radical idea of a human right to live and sleep on sidewalks, parks and other public property.
Linda Lehnkering embraces that radical notion and believes the anti-camping ordinance “criminalizes” homelessness. Lenkhering was the panelist at the progressive Anaheim city council candidates forum who asked the various candidates if they would vote to repeal the anti-camping ordinance:
“HUD is ranking continuum of care funding for homeless services based in part on county and city laws that criminalize homelessness. So just to be clear, the US Department of Justice states that punishing conduct that is a universal and unavoidable consequence of being a human violates the 8th Amendment against cruelty when the person literally has no where else to go, then an anti-camping ordinance enforced against that person criminalizes them for being homeless. Anaheim enforces such a ban even though there is a lack of shelter and housing.
So my question is: would you support the repeal of these anti-camping and anti-sleeping ordinances in Anaheim, and why or why not?”
The working group includes representatives from the offices of Senator Josh Newman and Assemblymember Sharon Quirk-Silva. Murray had to push for inclusion of Assemblyman and former Anaheim Mayor Tom Daly’s office.
Missing from the working group are representatives of those bearing the brunt of the encampments: adjacent and nearby businesses and neighborhoods that have been victimized by the growing criminal element in these encampments.
If someone formed a “abortion policy working group” and weighted it with vocal Planned Parenthood advocates – or conversely, pro-life activists – there’d be little doubt as to the policy recommendations it would make.
By refusing to affirm the anti-camping ordinance, and then impaneling a homeless task force dominated by advocates of repealing that ordinance, Tait, Moreno, Vanderbilt and Barnes are setting the machinery of repeal in motion.
Think about that. The current ordinance makes it illegal to camp or store personal property on city property such as parks. A councilmember either one agrees with it and wants it enforced, or opposes it and supports repeal. Either one believes transients should be legal to camp in parks, on sidewalks or freeway medians – or it should be illegal. The council majority shouldn’t need a homeless policy task force in order to make up its mind on the subject. Their constituents don’t.
Unreal. When’s the next election? Time to line up better candidates.
Maybe a recall is in order.
Anaheim will vote for the Mayor, and three councilpersons. District 2 and 6 will get its first district election, and District 3 will have an election in regards to Dr. Moreno’s seat, in November 2018.
Districts 1, 4 and 5 next election will be November of 2020.
We have a no-camping ordinance in Anaheim. What would the state or the Fed do in this situation? Shoo them away, move them on, keep them moving. That is the policy that works.
Hmm.. so when white men with guns and pick-up trucks occupy federal land the rich and powerful call them freedom fighters, but when homeless men occupy Anaheim parks or the river bed they’re ne’er-do-wells who must be squished and moved on ? Funny old world isn’t it ?
Why white men? we are all lower middle class in this area struggling to keep our wages up and not turn it into a sewer pit.
Wow. Good luck enjoying a day at the park ever again. THOSE DAYS ARE O-V-E-R.
But I guess if you just vote however the mayor tells you to, then ok.
Would you let your child use a park restroom at 3am? Mike Robbins, how can you think it’s ok to open it for the transients!? What is WRONG with you?
Low, very low standards I guess. Learn boundries!
No, of course I wouldn’t let my child use a public restroom at 3am – they’d use the one in our house. But respectfully that’s the whole point – if you don’t have a house you don’t have that choice. If you keep public restrooms locked then you can’t complain if people who have no other option have to use bushes or alleyways. I hope you and your loved ones never have to face that terrible choice. The only way to truly solve the unhoused problem is to quickly provide far more affordable housing. It’s okay to be angry, but let’s be angry at the cause, not just the symptom.
How many have you taken in this week ?
Would you let your kid use any bathroom anywhere till they are old enough.
Google search Walmart needles in bathrooms, Google search walmart sex in bathrooms, Google search Mcdonalds needles in restrooms. Many public bathrooms typically have a schedule board where every employee has to sign his or her name every hour that they checked it. There is a reason for that…
Then all us fine citizens need to pack our tents and camping gear and head out to our parks for a couple of days and nights of camping and take our parks back
Salmacis: really?? The transients have never been offered ANY other choice than our children’s park restrooms? Really now. That is their only option? Poor Salmacis, you may need to check your facts before stating anything. They have been offered. Many times. Nany, many times. The ones left refuse help, some have violent criminal histories, and people like you are insisting we “open” our children’s parks to them. HEY I HAVE A GREAT IDEA!!!!!OPEN YOUR BACKYARD!!!! THEY CAN USE YOUR RESTROOM! WHY NOT?????????? Then don’t offer our children’s parks.
I wholeheartedly agree with either recall or electing candidates who are actually taking our opinions into account. I emailed Moreno about this meeting and he said he wanted to get an opinion from the task force. But now that I know how stacked the members are towards his liberal pro-homeless agenda, I am very against both him, Tait and anyone else who thinks opening up our parks and restrooms are a good idea for US! Salmacis is one of them too. I am fed up with the homeless bleeding hearts!
Remember these names the next time any of them come up for election. I will never give my vote to any of them for anything. I want the parks to be for families and not for bums. I am sick and tired of the whole issue and I want the laws to be enforced.
Letter to me from Susan Price
Thanks Mike for reaching out to me regarding the City of Anaheim Task Force work group.
My schedule is fairly tight, month after month, so in all honesty, I cannot commit to another standing meeting. The work of this task force is important, and I would be willing to accept an invite to come to a future group meeting to review and discuss its draft recommendations.
I have dedicated my career to solving the issue of homelessness, and I too am very passionate about the people that we represent in our commitment to this work. I don’t know whether there is a disagreement, more so, we play different roles in this work and we should respect each other for that, given that we both want to solve homelessness. Your comments to me at the kraemer meeting was adversarial and in my view, hence not productive to our collective abilities to move initiatives forward that provide relief to those that remain homeless in Orange County. I ask you to reconsider the impact that we each can have in this work, independently and collectively. In my experience, Advocacy plays an important role in this work, but only if it can remain effectively engaged.
I look forward to hearing how the task force is progressing, take care.
Speech to the BOS
Please enjoy
You can’t move forward with forced relocation, harassment, confiscation, imprisonment and hatred.
I do not believe in a law of hate. I believe in a law of love.
I would like to see a time when we seek to love our fellow man and forget his wealth – or lack of it.
I know the life of a homeless person has been one of tragedy and prejudice and now in Orange county Oppression also.
There is suffering, sorrow, misfortune and death among the homeless people.
I would advise that you rethink your mistakes now
The homeless faces look to you, their hopes and fears are in your hands.
To them it is life
Their hearts go out to you, their hopes hang on your actions.
We must face this dilemma and face it fairly.
I ask you in the name of the humanity to HELP now.
The helpless turn to you act on their behalf
What is your duty
Again, Mike – why don’t you support converting existing STRs in Anaheim into mini-homeless shelters. If you believe so deeply in what you say, take that message door to to door and convince your neighbors to join your crusade. Why wouldn’t you do that?
Mike complained about the problems STRs caused but has no issue with the problems camps cause.
That’s grossly unfair.
Parks, channels and public areas aren’t intended to be housing, transient or otherwise.
You lobbied the city claiming STRs were an improper zoning use but now you’re asking the city to do just that!
Matthew is right- open up the str’s as homeless camps.
Good for you Matt! Get on board! We have had this idea for awhile. The city should offer subsidies or incentives to the STR owners of the overbuilt properties to open them up to the homeless residents; The Illumination Foundation a homeless care and placement group could purchase these properties at reduced prices with the city paying the difference to the sellers.
A 7 bedroom house can have 12 people or more transitioning into permanent housing, with one room for full time staff. In fact this Foundation has many facilities and no one knows they are even there they are so quiet.
Proper staffing is a must and of course they have different facilities depending on the needs of the people. The more disruptive folks need more care and special facilities not STRs which the Illumination Foundation also has.
Mike Robbins – the day you put out an email to your neighbors urging the city to subsidize STR owners to convert their proprieties for homeless shelters or advocate on behalf of Grandma’s House of Hope for transitional housing, you will have some credibility. Until then you are just someone looking for another 3 min of fame courtesy of council comments being broadcasted on cable twice a month…
Don’t need to get the neighbors as there is a fund for it with $250,000,000 that is not being tapped for some odd reason. Todd Spitzer mentioned the amount at the last BOS meeting.
Please come for your 3 minutes of fame – perhaps after 100 or 200 times you too will get new books for schools or money for after school programs or help for your neighbors that are freaking out about the hotel next to them or fair elections or more police or affordable housing or money from Disney for the city instead of for Disney or even helping people in need like the homeless population…
Walking the neighborhoods talking to everyone is actually not that bad. I like making 100s of shirts for events and putting up 200 signs all over town for an issue. But I am getting too old to walk for hours and pound in nails so i do need help are you available?
Stressful though too.
Funnest and easiest part is typing here !!
I am working out getting ready for the next election cycle…
Last Thursday 3 violent crimes at Palm Lane Park in one day. The parks are struggling enough as it is and you want them to house the homeless? It opens up so many more issues. If you build it they will come. Let them stay on the river bed and camp. Offer them help and a way out of homelessness.
Random: I saw the picture of the City Net worker talking to a man on the riverbed who looked to be struggling, yet he had a cigarette. How did he get a cigarette and if it was given to him why? He can’t afford the high price of cigarettes so why scratch that itch by giving him one? They cause cancer as well, why care like this? Let your council members know that parks are for parks BUT we must find a peaceful path for all.
Give them services and get them into a home. Do that with the $700,000,000 the Board of Supervisors has for this issue. Crazy to think they have that much money for this and are not using it?
As the federal government and state governments do they use funds to pad their budget on paper so it looks like they are in the black or close to it.
Meanwhile it costs us in tax dollars a fortune to leave them out in the parks…
Meanwhile back to reality Matt:
No one is going repeal the camping ordnance. One there is no community support to do it. Two there is no council support for it. What might happen is the repeal of the “storage” section of the camping ordnance that allows the APD to take the possessions of the homeless.
Equally bad to repeal that section of the ordinance, they’re parks, not storage centers. There are two storage centers in the city now that are supposedly nowhere near full. That’s due to the requirement that you actually accept help.
Let’s All Look at the larger picture,
The Alfresco Gardens Plan by Nancy West, this is a plan that could be implemented right now, County wide… State wide… Nation wide, In the Richest Country in the History of Planet Earth, we can do so much better!!!
Mark:
That’s what liberals said back in the 1960s when the War on Poverty and Great Society were launched: we’re the richest nation on Earth; we can eliminate poverty. 40-plus years and trillions of dollars in government anti-poverty spending later, the poverty rate is the same.
What the Great Society DID succeed in doing was arresting the decline in the poverty rate. Maybe, someday, liberals like yourself will wake up and realize that government cannot solve the human condition.
Hi
I wonder if Tom or Jose have ever approached a group of homeless people, ask them if they want or need help in finding a home or shelter? I have. They do not want change! They do not want to live by another man’s rules/laws! Our social services allow them to collect monies thru a P.O. Box or friends address. They don’t feel they need to change their life style. They are free! They don’t pay rent, taxes, they are given food, are allowed to use some convenience stores restrooms for bathing (or some sneak into private pools or Jacuzzi’s to bathe at 2 a.m.) Some have pets!!! Somehow they are given enough funds from our liberal social services to get pet food, cigarettes, drugs, drinks, etc. Liberal advocates bring them food. They can afford nice tents and cooking utensils, Parks should be safe and secure from drug addicts, condoms in restrooms, needles in bushes, etc. Let Tom and Jose actually open their eyes. There’s so many wonderful groups that have been trying to help them for years…they don’t want the help, so let’s not give them our parks!!!!
I echo your experience and perspective. I have twice participated in the biannual homeless count “Point in time” and it was a real eye opener. I know Councilmember Kring has also done it and I think ALL council members should be required to. Especially before they weigh in on homeless issues.
Meet me at the River Bed and we will talk to the people together glad to add someone to the cause. Most want a home, period.
Do you think the homeless children want to be homeless?
Thousands of students in the OC
http://www.ocregister.com/2015/02/20/oc-nonprofit-tracks-homeless-students-academics/
10s of thousands on L.A.
http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-homeless-community-college-20170628-story.html
MY GOSH what is going on?!!!
They do not have restrooms. If you do not have a restroom where do you go?
They get food tents back packs sleeping bags and more from people that believe in god and do their best for the people in need, Churches, Mosques and Temples.
Google search needles in Walmart bathrooms and you will read pages and pages of problems in bathrooms across the country. Google search opiod addiction at all time high and that is everywhere.
The homeless faces look to you, their hopes and fears are in your hands.
To them it is life
Their hearts go out to you, their hopes hang on your actions.
Help
You are so full of baloney. It’s unbelievable that Tait, Moreno, Barnes and Vanderbilt have appointed you to their homeless task force.
There is no reason for homeless people with children to remain homeless. They are a top priority for service providers and are the simplest to get into rapid re-housing.
The “hopes and fears” of the homeless are not in our hands. They are in their own hands. They have to make that choice, that decision for themselves. There is help for those who want to escape that lifestyle.
Mike, bleeding hearts like you only make the problem worse by accommodating and enabling the homeless lifestyle.
As others here have pointed out, if you really believed your own bleeding heart BS, you’d advocate for housing the homeless in STRs. But you don’t because you like being seen by your anti-STR neighbors as some kind of hero, and advocating for turning those STRs into mini emergency shelters would turn you into a neighborhood pariah.
Here here! You stated it exactly as I was thinking it!
Wow.. Well said Wanda.
Wanda I agree well said. Yes, try and help them but not at the expense of others .
If u are going to open the part to home less camping. Please sell them all and give the money to homeless shelter. Or open your yard and bath room to the homeless.
The abandoned property on Western Avenue that is between Ball road and Teranimar has an illegal group of Homeless advocates who have taken it over. The person to call is Rolando at 760 609 5977, he put his name on the sign on the locked property.Although police have been notified, the city of Anaheim, and numerous neighbors have called nothing can be done yet. This will escalate really fast. Please react by contacting city manager, council, mayor and police and not allowing this to continue.
You cant stop God
If any of you had experienced being homeless, you would understand that not everyone out there is a thief or criminal. Many are out there due to unforeseen circumstances, such as losing a job, medical issues, divorce, and any number of other reasons. These people never choose this life style, it was thrust upon them by circumstance. Most are good people experiencing a bad situation in their lives. Although many of you seem to think that the people left out there right now are choosing to be there, there is nothing further from the truth. Many of them don’t get housed by public agencies because they are white, males with no disability or any other reason to make them stand out. Being homeless is never a way of life that someone chooses!
So next time you vote for this ordinance or that law, make sure you stop and remember, that could be me out there! Most of us do not have the funds saved up or family and friend who can help you out when you lose your job for a long term or are diagnosed with a severe disease that doesn’t allow you to work, or get divorced and find that your income covers the cost of child support and alimony but doesn’t allow you to have a place of your own or you are evicted from your home and can’t find another apartment to rent or any number of other things. Financial analysts suggest having six months of income saved in liquid funds, just in case something happens. Do you have that? Even if you do, what do you do after six months. This is the main reason that people become homeless! So don’t ever think “that could never happen to me” because it’s not that hard to end up right where you said you would never be!
And one other thing, you can call me all the names you want or belittle my point of view, but what I say is from experience! That’s right, I was one of those homeless individuals who needed help. It took years for me to get it. I was out there for 10 years and not because I chose it. Nor did I choose to continue to be out there. It’s a vicious cycle that involves depression, loss of self-worth, and downright disgust with yourself!
Amen Tracy. I grew up in Anaheim Lived there until 1979, got married, then divorced, and have almost been right where you are talking about. Stand strong, I agree 100% with you. Not all homeless/less fortunate people are thieves and thugs. I’ve struggled, and struggled since my divorce, and don’t wish it on anyone.
Thank you, Debi for standing with me! I appreciate it!
Tax-paying citizens are being denied the use of facilities we pay for by the inaction and poor decision-making of the very public officials we put in power to act on our behalf. There is no way I would visit these parks. Np parent in their right mind would send their kid into a park restroom alone nor would they go in themselves. The homeless have trashed them. The Santa Ana River bike trail is essentially unusable through several parts of Orange County, most notably near Anaheim Stadium, due to the homeless population. Our own Orange County Courthouse plaza, which should be the centerpiece of Orange County, is overrun with the homeless. Everywhere you look, there they are, lounging around our once-pristine public spaces, making them unusable. What our city governments have done is given the very population that is incapable of making sound decisions the authority to make the rules. What has essentially happened is that the grownups who used to run Orange County have left the decision-making process to the immature politicians who are not concerned about anything but votes. It is an absolute like the firmness of the earth below my feet that if these politicians were faced with tent cities on their front lawns, and homeless people urinating in their bushes and sleeping on their porches, laws would be enacted the next morning. In there defense, some cities are either taking back their cities, (Fountain Valley, for example,) or preventing the problem before it starts, (Irvine, most notably), by simply forbidding the homeless to take up residence, and transferring the problem to cities run by liberal politicians who have made the decision to accept the filth and defacement of their communities in exchange for votes.
There has to be some vacant land somewhere in the county. Where porta potties or put up normal bathrooms. For camp sites. Give them a regular campground. I would love nothing more than to take my grandkids to the park. Is so not happening when I have to walk them past so many people and their bike trailers so loaded down they have to push them. The parade of them to the park every morning and back to wherever every night. These budgets you keep talking about should fund a campground several years.
Would a campground help to get them out of homelessness? Otherwise we’re just using tax dollars to subsidize folks who don’t want to contribute. Where in Anaheim do you propose this campground?
Bus stop benches in the “resort” GONE.
These are campers who choose to be “homeless”. I was almost homeless with 2 small kids and living with a brain tumor living on one of worst streets in L.A. Going hungry to feed my kids. I chose not to let this happen to my kids. I worked, cleaned toilets, swept floors, emptying trash cans which by the way I found food for me to eat. My kinds did not eat from a trash can. I did. I worked in a super marketing picking up shopping carts. I wonder where they got those expensive tents? I worked hard to pay taxes. I have a right to go to a park and enjoy it not be afraid. We don’t live in a third world country
Fake news. Not “re-affirmed” because it does not need to … it is on the books and is staying there.