The Orange County Board of Supervisors has renewed the contract of a homeless services centre in Santa Ana, much to the dismay of some residents.
“I’m just tired, tired of the ugliness that my grandchildren have to see,” said resident Martha Alarcon.
Alarcon lives near the Mental Health Association’s service centre on South Main Street, a unique facility that offers a myriad of services such as showers, laundry and opportunities to connect the homeless with housing and jobs.
She and local resident David Ball wanted the county to stop funding the facility.
“Our children deserve to grow up in an area where there aren’t needles on the ground,” Ball said. “They deserve to walk on clean sidewalks without feces and not have to search the area for transients before they can play in the park.”
Dozens of other residents joined Ball and Alarcon to voice their frustration with the centre at Tuesday’s board meeting. They hoped their pleas would convince the supervisors to get rid of the facility.
“I completely understand the desire and the need, but unfortunately this placement and this location,” said Supervisor Vince Sarmiento. “We really don’t know if it has become a magnet to draw people there or if that population already existed. That’s really the challenge for us to understand.”
Santa Ana council members said they’ve been serving their homeless population for a long time and hope other cities will step in to build more facilities.
“You’ve got indecent exposure, you’ve got kids going to elementary and middle schools who see people acting erratically and dangerously,” said Councilmember Phil Bacerra. “That’s not something that kids in other parts of our county have to deal with every day.”
While the board renewed the centre’s contract by a narrow 3-2 vote, if the facility is not relocated within a year, the contract will be terminated.