Posted on 03/20/2018 1:23:54 PM PDT by jeannineinsd
Supervisors voted Monday for Orange County to spend $70.5 million on permanent housing for the homeless, and to create temporary homeless camps in Irvine, and possibly in Huntington Beach and Laguna Niguel.
The vote comes a week after supervisors committed $20 million toward permanent housing for the homeless. The combined $90 million is likely the single largest appropriation ever committed by the county to fight homelessness, and signals a shift in the county’s strategy to solve the growing issue.
The decision came as supervisors admitted that they’ve failed to spend money that’s been available for homeless housing – tens of millions of dollars technically earmarked for mental health funding. Supervisors said they’d been misled by county staff as to what resources were available, though news reports for at least two years have pointed to the availability of up to $186 million.
Staff will advise supervisors in the coming weeks about how the county can acquire land or renovate buildings. It’s unclear when actual construction, or acquisition of housing, might begin.
For homeless advocates, the vote was a welcome surprise.
“It’s really great to see the county finally… take steps to ending the housing crisis in Orange County,” said Brooke Weitzman, an attorney who this year sued the county on behalf of the homeless.
Monday’s vote emerged from negotiations in that ongoing lawsuit, which targeted the county’s efforts to dismantle the homeless encampments along the Santa Ana River Trail. As part of an agreement in that case, the county in February moved nearly 700 people to local motels for 30-day stays.
But as motel vouchers began to expire on Friday, and the county prepared to move people to other temporary shelters, attorneys for the homeless alleged there isn’t enough capacity to shelter all of those who were being moved.
(Excerpt) Read more at ocregister.com ...
How long have you been waiting? How are you managing, in the meantime?
..... Ha ... The return of the “Poor Houses” is just around the corner.
My earliest memories of Orange County are from 1951 when we drove west from Pennsylvania for an extended visit with my aunt, uncle and two older cousins living in La Habra. Almost every winter we would go visit. My parents would take me out of school from late December to the end of January. When I was stationed in San Diego in the ‘60’s and early ‘70’s, I would drive north half the weekends to visit my relatives. Last time I was there was 1975. Alas, I have no desire to visit before I die. It was surely beautiful there. Sigh
I was also born & raised in California. I'm from L.A.; my father, after he retired, moved to Orange County.
My brother tells me about the homeless camps he passes by in downtown L.A. ("Like something out of THE LIVING DEAD," he said.) My stepmother, too, mentioned the Santa Ana area, which looks like downtown Damascus.
I left California 30 years ago. Even back then, it was starting to change. The underclass became increasingly visible.
“It’s really great to see the county finally… take steps to ending the housing crisis in Orange County,”
Want to see a REAL homeless problem? Wait until housing is free.
“Get them off drugs, and find them jobs, and 90% of the problem will be solved.”
They do not want to be off drugs. What is left of their brains, are content with the lives they presently live.
Only 10 percent state they want assistance. Whyis that so?
It is so, because assistance comes with strings, rules, etc.
And they don’t want rules.
Really? What happened to the beggar-chooser issue? Also, notice how they are taking funds that are "left over" from one budget item transferring it to "temporary" housing. Temporary? Yeah, right. If I were in CA, I would be PO'ed at the county. To me, any "left over" funds should be returned to the people who paid the taxes, not deadbeats who want to live free on the taxpayer's back.
When I left Cali 5 years ago, there wasn’t a single sign in Santa Ana that wasn’t in Spanish. Westminster is Vietnamese.
Affordable housing in CA is now an oxymoron.
In the 1970s, you could buy a decent starter home for 40,000.
Now it costs 600,000 to find a place just for a couple and one kid.
People are literally priced out of the housing market and Freepers slam the poor rather than bureaucrats for creating the affordable housing crisis.
Disgusting. In most of the country people can afford a place to live. Just not in CA.
And I have a bridge too sell.
They will need a much bigger budget. The housing is just one part. Ongoing electric, gas, water, sewer, and of course cable and internet to keep them entertained so they don’t kill the neighbors. The ongoing bill will be enormous and forever.
A few months. May take up to 2 years. Then again, if I lived in the big city, I might be out of options.
CA is a place where you have the rich and the poor.
The middle class is fleeing because life is better elsewhere.
Only the rich can afford a home. The poor just create an eyesore because no real options exist for them.
And here I thought liberalism had the homeless problem licked. Oh well.
Would have been better to create “makework” jobs, and make them work. But liberalism doesn’t work that way. They want as many people dependent on the government as possible. Gets them closer to their ideal of everybody being paid by the government, which is the sole employer.
Any American citizens in the group getting the handouts?
Or are they all illegal aliens?
Some of these people prefer to drift, just doing their own thing & expecting everyone else to support them.
Trailer for sale or rent, rooms to let, fifty cents.
No phone, no pool, no pets, I ain’t got no cigarettes
Ah, but, two hours of pushin’ broom...
Whoa! No this guy did some WORK
“And here I thought liberalism had the homeless problem licked. Oh well.”
Since the libs NEVER let the homeless get near them, the homeless problem is solved...for the libs, at least.
Call me when the H-wood high school grads who think they are Mensa members get homeless dwellings next door to them.
Basically, then, CA is turning into a banana republic. What's frightening -- everyone there is crazy. The rich -- a bunch of Silicon Valley/Hollywood crazies -- and the underclass -- criminals & mentally ill.
State of CA = State of decadence.
Liberals have destroyed sports, entertainment, and education.
And politics
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