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Orozco, Norma From: Melinda Jordan < Sent: Wednesday, August 08, 2018 6:12 PM To: eComment Subject: Homeless in Santa Ana Categories: Correspondence Within the next few weeks, the Santa Ana City Council and the Orange County Board of Supervisors will decide on a new 600-700 bed emergency homeless shelter for Santa Ana. There is a draft memorandum of understanding (MOU) that was discussed at Judge Carter's hearing on August 3rd. This would be the largest shelter in Orange County. The Judge is not requiring Santa Ana to build a shelter this size. The proposal is coming from our elected leaders and staff. It is absolutely unacceptable and unfair that Santa Ana must shoulder the burden of all of Orange County's homeless. Best practices indicate no shelter should be larger than 200 beds. The County of Orange Homeless Assessment report shows a 200 -bed emergency shelter for each of the three service planning areas: north, central and south. Santa Ana currently has the largest emergency shelter, the Courtyard. The number of beds has exceeded 400 over the past several months. This temporary site, the Courtyard, was only planned for 200-300 beds. The County's own numbers show more than half the people staying at the Courtyard are from areas other than the Central Service Planning Area. Using this information, a 200 -bed emergency shelter for the Central Service Planning Area would meet the need. Most of the shelter beds are not filled with Santa Ana residents. If additional beds are needed in the Central Service Planning Area, then Huntington Beach, Garden Grove, Tustin, Fountain Valley, Costa Mesa, Newport Beach, Orange, Villa Park and Westminster need to help. The County has 85 acres from the former Tustin Marine Base and 100 acres at the former EI Toro Marine Base• Any emergency homeless shelter over 300 beds would be larger than any emergency facility in Los Angeles County. This information is based on the LA County Homeless Shelter inventory and phone conversations with the LA Mission, Union Rescue Mission, and LA Family Housing Corporation. In addition to the Courtyard, we currently have Wiseplace/Safeplace for 60 women and are building a new facility for veterans. I believe most of our residents and businesses want to help the homeless by building more permanent supportive housing such as The Orchard and The Aqua Motel. It's time for other cities to seriously step up and share the responsibility for building necessary emergency shelters A concerned Santa Ana long-time resident 27