Alleging that Santa Ana enacted zoning ordinances that “unabashedly and unlawfully” discriminate, a nonprofit health care provider has sued the city.
The Share Our Selves Corporation, which provides medical and dental services to low-income Santa Ana residents, including the homeless, sued the city on March 20 in federal court. It alleges Santa Ana prevented it from closing escrow on a building that was meant to open as an expanded outpatient clinic, “all because City leaders feared that SOS’s outpatient clinic … would attract too many ‘undesirables’ to that area of the city.”
Known as SOS, the nonprofit alleges that the city is using its land-use regulations “to thwart and obstruct the operations of charitable organizations, like Micah’s Way and the Salvation Army” and targeted the new building project because the clinic’s clientele is predominantly lower-income Latinos and includes homeless people.
The city’s actions, argues Edmond Connor, an attorney representing the nonprofit, are part of “an organized campaign by the city to go after service providers to help the homeless and poor.”
A Santa Ana spokesperson declined to comment on the lawsuit and pointed instead to staff reports behind the council’s zoning amendments.
The Santa Ana City Council approved an urgency ordinance on Dec. 20 amending different sections of a zoning law that, among other things, immediately required a conditional use permit for government or nonprofit medical clinics in areas zoned for professional purposes. The change aimed to address and “reduce the potential impact to the built environment stemming from these land uses,” according to a staff report.
On Feb. 7, the council approved a second zoning ordinance amendment that addressed numerous topics, including medical offices operating in a professional district. The lawsuit refers to that ordinance language on medical clinics as a “backup measure” and called it “the mirror image” of the…
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