Council adopts Homeless Task Force’s recommendations
As with many of its votes, the Costa Mesa City Council adopted the Homeless Task Force’s recommendations with a majority on one side and a single dissenter on the other.
But this time, the rebel wasn’t Councilwoman Wendy Leece, who often finds herself in the minority on the council dais. Instead, during the March 20 meeting she was part of the majority alongside Mayor Pro Tem Jim Righeimer and Councilman Steve Mensinger. Councilman Gary Monahan was absent from the 3-1 vote.
“Wendy and I go way back,” Righeimer said, adding that it shouldn’t be surprising that they voted together on this issue.
Mayor Eric Bever cast the lone dissenting vote, saying he feared the recommendations would open a Pandora’s box that, like toothpaste, would “squeeze the [homeless] to the other side of town.”
There aren’t many things that Righeimer and Leece, a Homeless Task Force member, agree on when it comes to changing the city’s direction, but providing services to homeless Costa Mesans and doing the city’s “fair share” in addressing homelessness was enough to unite them.
The vote wrapped up more than a year of work by the task force in examining policies adopted by other cities, including Laguna Beach, Ontario, Pasadena, Seattle and St. Petersburg, Fla.
Among the goals established early on was helping homeless people who last lived in Costa Mesa, or had ties or close relatives in the city. Task force members said they wanted to help those who have lived here for at least 90 days, and in a period that began no more than 24 months ago.
On the stick side of the task force’s carrot-and-stick approach are ordinances affecting parks, including permits for parking overnight and stricter parking enforcement to prevent overnight camping.
“A lot of the things we’re doing are already in place,” Muriel Ullman, the city’s neighborhood improvement manager, told the City Council in March. “It’s just a new way of doing business.”
Other ordinances include barring smoking at athletic facilities — which was introduced at the task force meetings and pushed through by the Parks and Recreation Commission last year — a sex offender ban from parks and a multifaceted legal strategy for stronger prosecution against repeat ordinance offenders.
The carrot side includes services providing alternatives to public storage and sleeping in city parks. One solution mentioned was continuing the relationship with the Crossing Church on Newport Boulevard, which maintains a storage facility for homeless Costa Mesans to leave their belongings.
Other solutions include motel vouchers for police to give out at their discretion and exploring options with the county to keep armories open beyond their winter hours.
Righeimer said the direction the city is heading toward is caring for homeless Costa Mesans without attracting other homeless from around the county.
“[The] issue is a lot of well-intentioned people … have set up a lot of nonprofits in our city, [which], as well-intended as they are, become a magnet for the whole county, not necessarily people who have a connection to Costa Mesa,” Righeimer said, adding that it’s been a long-standing issue.
“With this council, it was finally: ‘How do you help people get out of homelessness, yet not be a magnet for people outside Costa Mesa?’” he said.
The task force was created in part as a response to complaints about Lions Park, which has been called “Ground Zero” of Costa Mesa’s homelessness problem.
Throughout meetings, residents brought up concerns about taking children to the park on West 18th Street; in turn, some homeless who live in the area said they worried the city would pull the plug on resources for them.
Leece said she is in the same boat as many people in the Lions Park area, and hears their concerns.
“Because I live near Lions Park and drive down 19th Street and by the library, I am acutely aware of many homeless persons in Costa Mesa who often keep our residents from enjoying some of our parks and the library,” Leece wrote in an email. “We needed a plan. It took us more than a year. Now we have a plan and will hold staff accountable for the results.”
Any action that would require money from city coffers would need the approval of the City Council first. An update of how the recommendations are being implemented is expected in September.
Twitter: @lawilliams30