As winter weather fast approaches, all 34 OC cities have been sent a letter from the county Commission to End Homelessness asking for their thoughts on hosting decentralized cold weather emergency shelters, instead of having one or two facilities serving the entire county.
A Cold Weather Emergency Shelter Ad Hoc formed by the commission earlier this year found that hosting a few large shelters in select cities has been challenging and saw an opportunity for multiple smaller sites to operate during the cold weather months. City mayors and managers were sent letters in August asking what their individual city needs are during winter months, and gauging city leaders’ willingness to host a cold weather emergency shelter to fit those needs.
“The goal was to make the opportunity available to all 34 cities so there could be a more collaborative and coordinated effort to have as many cities as possible provide some bed placements for people who are going to be experiencing an extreme weather event,” Second District Supervisor Vicente Sarmiento said.
The committee received six responses, with Costa Mesa and Anaheim showing interest in running a site in their community, he said.
The county has provided emergency shelters during the colder winter months since 2007, mostly at the National Guard armories in Santa Ana and Fullerton.
The hunt for a temporary cold weather shelter location for the last winter season started in the previous summer, with little success. A possible location in Santa Ana was proposed, but was stopped by a judge in October 2022 after residents stressed that other cities needed to pick up the slack in addressing homelessness instead of leaving the responsibility to Santa Ana.
The city of Fullerton volunteered to host the shelter in January 2023, converting the city’s Independence Park gymnasium into a place homeless folks could stay during the cold for the following few months.
“Every city should do some proportionate amount of effort to…
Read the full article here