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increase from the year before.' These rents are far out-of-reach for many lower income working families in the City, which includes the homeless. Orange County officials estimate that nearly 15,300 people will experience homelessness at least one night over the course of the year. That's a 20 percent increase compared with the 2013 estimate of 12,707.2 The City should focus its attention on fixing this embarrassing crisis rather than taking draconian and punitive steps as proposed in the Resolution to address the homelessness crisis in the City. Third, we reject the call for a heavy-handed law enforcement approach to homelessness in the Civic Center. People living in the Civic Center need protection, not police harassment. They live outdoors and are unprotected because the county and its cities have failed to provide enough affordable housing or even emergency shelter to meet the need. Because they have nowhere else to live, they cannot comply with the city ordinances that prohibit sleeping and lying down in public. Enforcement of these ordinances would be tantamount to violating their civil rights and instead operate to criminalize homelessness. Further, heavy-handed enforcement of municipal codes and nuisance ordinances leads to confrontational interactions with law enforcement that can needlessly threaten the health, safety, and even lives of those living in the Civic Center. On August 1st, for example, Santa Ana police officers approached Mr. Swihart, a homeless individual who violated a nuisance ordinance by riding his bicycle in the Civic Center. Mr. Swihart struggled with officers, prompting one of them to fire multiple rounds at him. He was rushed to the hospital in critical condition and died on August 14th. Nowhere in the attached Resolution is this recent death, or the city's response to it, mentioned. Fourth, moving people from the Civic Center to the bus terminal, by threat of citation, may violate their rights. This bus terminal was designed to house buses, not people. It is a concrete structure that lacks wrap-around walls, wind barriers, showers, or heating, and therefore fails to meet the basic requirements for adequate shelter. Moreover, people with mental and physical disabilities may not be able to tolerate the crowded and congregate conditions that will arise when hundreds of people are packed into the terminal. If the bus terminal is opened for use as a living space, it will need to be retrofitted for human habitation and made accessible for people with disabilities. Use of the terminal should be strictly voluntary. Fifth, we urge the Santa Ana City Council to support true solutions to homelessness. The county has a Ten-Year Plan to End Homelessness. The centerpiece of this plan is a "housing first" model which provides affordable and permanent supportive housing to people as an immediate response to their needs. This is the federally recommended and proven solution to homelessness. Although the county approved the plan in 2010, homelessness is on the rise. This is because the county has failed to fund the plan, instead relying on stagnating or disappearing federal and state funds that don't come close to meeting the need. The City of Santa Ana and all other cities in Orange County should encourage the county to create a housing trust fund—a dedicated source of funding for affordable and permanent supportive housing. They could also ' Tiny Spaces No So Cheap:Studios are O.C.'s Priciest Rentals, Orange County Register, April 16, 2016. 2 Head Count shows growing homeless population in Orange County, 89.3 KPCC, June 30, 2015. 601 Civic Center Drive West•Santa Ana,CA 92701-4002• (714)541-1010• Fax(714) 541-5157