OC supervisors approve more aggressive homelessness response, including fines, jail time

Orange County can now arrest and fine unhoused individuals immediately for camping along flood control channels, in county parks or on other county-owned land. The new policy was approved by the O.C. Board of Supervisors on Tuesday by a 4-1 vote, despite concerns Santa Ana could be forced to contend with an increase in unhoused people booked and released from the county’s main jail.

It marks a shift in addressing homelessness that has been echoed in cities and counties across California and the West since a major Supreme Court ruling last year. That ruling, Grants Pass v. Johnson, reversed a ban on criminalizing people for sleeping in public places if no adequate shelter bed was available.

Orange County’s new policy also reverses some parts of a 2019 legal settlement, which has partially expired, that required the county to screen unhoused people for mental health and other needs and to offer shelter and services before arresting or ticketing them for violating anti-camping and loitering laws. That settlement triggered a major boost in the county’s inventory of shelter beds and permanent supportive housing since local officials had to prove shelter was available in order to enforce anti-camping rules.

What supporters say

O.C. officials who support the new approach say the county will not abandon its current policy of sending social workers out with sheriff’s deputies to offer shelter and other assistance to unhoused people camping on county property.

But, they say, the new ordinance gives them an additional tool to protect public safety.

“We are not trying to arrest our way out of this,” Supervisor Katrina Foley, who proposed the measure, told LAist. “We are just making sure that when we have situations where people are taking over public spaces and it's a danger to them and to others … that we are able to enforce anti-camping [rules].”

Foley said the new rules were largely prompted by repeated, failed efforts to clear encampments from areas along the southern end of the Santa Ana River and flood control channels, including Talbert Regional Park and the new Randall Preserve. She said the juxtaposition of multiple jurisdictions with different anti-camping rules has made it difficult to keep encampments from continually re-emerging.

“We wanted to create a uniform set of rules,” Foley said.

What critics say

Supervisor Vicente Sarmiento lodged the sole vote against the new ordinance, calling it a “departure” from the county’s 2019 settlement with unhoused individuals, and the investments made to get people into shelter and housing.

Sarmiento, whose district includes the county’s main jail in Santa Ana, also said he was concerned Santa Ana could, once again, be forced to contend with the entire county’s unhoused population if they are arrested elsewhere, then released outside the jail.

It’s a complaint that Sarmiento, the former mayor of Santa Ana, and other local officials repeatedly lodged during the long and contentious court hearings that led to the county’s 2019 settlement with unhoused individuals.

“ When folks were being detained and arrested and taken in for minor offenses, you started seeing a pattern,” Sarmiento said.

Arrestees were sometimes released “in the middle of the night, with no access to transportation,” Sarmiento said, then ended up living on the streets of Santa Ana.

Despite his “no” vote, Sarmiento said he had “trust and confidence and hope that our sheriffs will continue to enforce [the new ordinance] in a way that's humane and follows the law.”

Homelessness is up, despite county efforts on housing

Since 2019, the county has added some 730 beds and completed close to 1,400 affordable and supporting housing units, according to the 2024 annual Point-In-Time report. The first official count since then, in 2022, showed a decline in homelessness. But between 2022 and 2024, which is the last time Orange County counted, homelessness grew 28%.

Nearly half of the people surveyed in that 2024 count said they had become homeless for the first time over the previous year. Foley acknowledged it’s an “ongoing issue.”

“It's not going to get better because we have the federal government impacting our local government in a dramatic way right now,” she said, referring to the delay and cut in SNAP food benefits, as well as cuts to federal housing and homelessness assistance. “I anticipate us seeing a lot more need.”

She also acknowledged that Orange County still doesn’t have enough affordable housing to meet the need as the cost of living continues to outpace wages.

“ So, what do we do? We have to build more housing,” Foley said. “And we have to make sure that we're thoughtful about the process  so that people can live near where they work.”