Judge prevents eviction of Mary’s Kitchen for 6 months due to concerns about homeless safety
A judge has blocked the city of Orange from evicting Mary’s Kitchen for six months due to concerns that the homeless people who rely on the nonprofit would be put at risk as the pandemic continues and rainy season begins.
During that time, the nonprofit will search for a new location.
Mary’s Kitchen has been fighting to stay open since the city sent Mary’s Kitchen a letter in June terminating its license agreement three years early. The nonprofit has been operating in Orange since the mid-1980s and has been at its current location, 517 W. Struck Ave., since 1994. Orange was aiming to shut the nonprofit down in mid-September until U.S. District Judge David O. Carter granted a temporary restraining order.
A nonprofit driven by donations and volunteers, hundreds have come to rely on the various services that Mary’s Kitchen offers, which include three meals, six days a week, to anyone who seeks them out. Clothing, showers and laundry facilities are available, and the nonprofit receives mail for hundreds of people.
“With respect to intent, the city has offered no compelling reason to justify the termination of critical services,” Carter wrote in his Tuesday court ruling. “The city has not proffered any plan or need to use the site immediately for a different purpose, and the purported increase in crime appears to have little basis ... Having worked with Mary’s Kitchen for almost 30 years, the city is well aware of the critical services offered by the organization and the lack of alternatives.”
The city contends that the nonprofit has become a magnet for crime and doesn’t fit into a continuum of care approach to solving homelessness, identified as a “comprehensive regional” strategy. However, Carter noted in his decision that the city has not provided sufficient evidence of a connection between Mary’s Kitchen and the criminal activity in the area.
Carter wrote in his court filing that the city has the right to prematurely end the licensing agreement due to a termination clause included in the text. However, he granted preliminary relief in the form of preventing the eviction until May 1 due to the risk to the unhoused population and the city’s inadequate plan to transition away from the nonprofit, which Carter called “a plan of ideas.”
The city’s plan centered on connecting homeless clients of Mary’s Kitchen to a few surrounding shelters within two weeks while partnering with the county and local nonprofits for other services.
“However, the current plan does not ensure that unhoused individuals receive comparable critical services, particularly given the onset of the rainy season and continuing pandemic,” Carter wrote of the city’s plan. “The city’s current proposal is an outline that lacks concrete and workable actions.”
Last week, Brooke Weitzman, an attorney representing Mary’s Kitchen, criticized the city’s plan, calling it “no plan at all” in a court filing.
Carter, echoing those sentiments, pointed out that the city committed to connecting homeless people to housing within two weeks, when it can regularly take two years to do that. Also, the shelters the city was planning on sending people to — HomeAid Orange County, Be Well Orange County, Buena Park Navigation Center, Placentia Navigation Center and Salvation Army Adult Rehabilitation Center — have either several restrictions for who can enter or have few or no beds available.
Carter also wrote that the city’s plan to provide food to the homeless “pales in comparison” to the hot meals provided by Mary’s Kitchen. That part of the plan included a food truck and distributing a list of food pantries. He also said that the city’s proposal to replace the mail services provided by the nonprofit would cause homeless people to miss paychecks, benefit payments and medication.
The city’s plan also relied on connecting homeless people with other organizations, like 2-1-1 Orange County. But Carter wrote that the organization doesn’t provide services in Orange except to connect people with Mary’s Kitchen.
The city also claimed to have partnered with the county to provide medical services up to three times per week for the homeless. However, Carter said a county spokesperson said the city made no request and the county doesn’t plan on increasing its medical services.
“First, the city has provided no evidence that any of the food providers listed have agreed to participate in the transition plan,” Carter wrote. “Second, the flyer that the city plans to hand out almost exclusively lists food pantries. The city confirmed at argument that half of those pantries are open in the same time slot on Wednesdays, meaning unhoused people could not visit more than one. Even if unhoused individuals can access these pantries, the pantries offer predominantly frozen and uncooked food, which is not workable for unhoused people without access to cooking facilities.”
He continued: “If the critical services currently provided by Mary’s Kitchen are removed without adequate replacement during the rainy season, Orange’s unhoused residents will face substantial risks to their health and their ability to obtain food and mail.”
Carter decided on the six-month timetable because Gloria Suess, who leads Mary’s Kitchen, said in an email to the city in 2019 that it would take the nonprofit five to six months to relocate and move all of its equipment. Carter also said six months is a sufficient amount of time for the city to find a way to replace the services provided by Mary’s Kitchen.
More homeless people will likely have died this year in Orange County than any other for the second year in a row.
Carter said that when Mary’s Kitchen closed many of its services in early 2020 due to the pandemic, the city experienced record death rates in its homeless population. Orange County had its most homeless deaths on record that year and it is on pace to eclipse that record again this year.
There is significant community and political support for Mary’s Kitchen. An online petition to save Mary’s Kitchen has garnered more than 8,700 signatures and state Sen. Dave Min and Assemblywoman Sharon Quirk-Silva have come to the defense of the nonprofit.
“The city is pleased that the court did not give Mary’s Kitchen the 18 to 24 months Mary’s Kitchen requested,” Seymour Everett, an attorney representing the city, said in an emailed statement. “It is unfortunate Mary’s Kitchen refused to work with the city and avoid litigation when it rejected the three additional months the city offered Mary’s Kitchen to transition from city property. The city’s transition plan provided the services necessary to transition Mary’s Kitchen from the city property and help the unhoused get into shelters to receive the care they need.
“Although the city is pleased the court did not provide Mary’s Kitchen 18 to 24 months to vacate the city property, the city is concerned about the legal reasoning for the court’s ruling and is considering all of its legal options. The city remains committed to helping the homeless by working with surrounding cities, community partners and the county. The city is working with community partners and homeless shelters to improve the lives of the unhoused by preventing crime, encampments and physical and mental abuse. It is the goal of the city to work with community partners to break the cycle of homelessness and work within the system to get people off the street into homeless shelters to provide them with the help they need to improve their standard of living.”
Weitzman said Tuesday the decision is a relief to the homeless who rely on Mary’s Kitchen.
“It’s certainly great that the court recognized that the plan for the city of Orange was was no plan at all and would put lives in immediate danger,” Weitzman said. “In terms of the timeline, we will see over the next few months how that goes, and whether the city takes any steps to prepare to provide services.”
Weitzman said Mary’s Kitchen is actively looking for a new location. The challenge the nonprofit is facing is finding a spot where they can still serve homeless people in Orange.
“If they move to a different location that was too far, while they might serve a different set of a few hundred people, it will be harmful to the people who rely on them now,” Weitzman said.
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