Westminster grapples with homelessness, considers opening a shelter

Westminster, where the main drag includes the slogan “All-America City,” is the heart of Orange County’s Little Saigon district, which was founded by refugees from Vietnam.

Now, four decades after the Vietnamese arrived, Westminster is working on how to help a different kind of refugee — homegrown homeless people.

An estimated 142 unsheltered people stay in Westminster, according to a city report presented at the Wednesday, Sept. 22 meeting of the city council. The report was part of an ongoing discussion the council has had for at least a year about how to help people get off Westminster streets. The big question Wednesday was whether the city should build an emergency shelter somewhere in town.

But that’s just one of several options up for discussion. Others include partnering with a neighboring city, such as Garden Grove, to open a shared facility. Another is to contract with a city that already has a shelter and pay to use some of those beds.

Beyond questions of political will and community support for a homeless shelter, Westminster is challenged by the twin issues of density and operating costs — hurdles anywhere but particularly in a compact community of mostly single family homes.

Not ready to make a decision on Wednesday, the five-member council asked Community Development Director Alexa Smittle to return with recommendations on the most feasible next steps.

Council member Carlos Manzo also asked for a timeline that best allows city staff to gather information, but underscored that he feels a sense of urgency.

“It sounds very dire and depressing as far as our options,” Manzo said at one point.

“If building a shelter is not in the cards for us, then what is?”

Signs

If Westminster decides to pursue its own shelter, the up-front costs could be covered by federal and state funds. But the cost to operate a 75- to 100-bed shelter was estimated a year ago at about $2 million a year. That money would come from the city’s coffers, although the city also could tap into $400,000 a year for up to five years through a state housing program.

The city already contracts with homeless aid agency City Net to help homeless people connect to services. And the Westminster Police Department already employs two homeless liaison officers.

While the City Net workers do come across people of Vietnamese descent who are homeless, a survey in March described the typical homeless person in Westminster as “a white male in his 50s.”

A brief drive around the city on a recent hot afternoon provided visible evidence of homelessness in pockets of the city. One sunburned couple sprawled on the grass beneath a tree at the Civic Center, a pair of neatly packed shopping carts parked beside them. One of the carts included a hand printed cardboard sign that read “Had some bad luck.”

They slept next to a picnic table in a below-grade rectangle of green space officially named “Sunken Gardens.”

Too few beds

With a population of about 91,000 residents occupying slightly over 10 square miles, the city is a bedroom community without enough beds for those who need them.

“Finding even 1 acre in Westminster will be challenging, given land use patterns, limiting the city’s ability to be selective in the location,” stated the city report that was presented to the council.

Though the report offered 11 bullet-point items showing ways in which Westminster is helping homeless people, staff concluded it’s not enough.

“Despite these efforts, the crisis persists,” the report noted.

Westminster Police Commander Kevin MacCormick told the council that his officers who are tasked with helping the homeless population are constrained by too few beds — in shelters, in detox centers or mental health facilities. Though the officers might be in contact with a homeless person who is ready to get off the streets, all too often there are no options to make that happen.

MacCormick described a frustrating daily routine for homeless liaison officers — of earning someone’s trust, calling around to find a place for them to go and, finding none, trying again early the next day. There’s the risk, on that second day, of not finding that homeless individual again or they’re no longerl willing to get off the street.

The shortage of homeless beds in Westminster is exacerbated because cities that do fund their own shelters require that the occupants have some kind of native ties, such as childhood homes, education or work connections.

“Our hands are kind of tied when it comes to getting people housed if those shelters are not accepting people because of the restrictions they put down,” MacCormick said.

Recently, Westminster Police outreach officers resumed work with a faith-based group of community members whose earlier efforts to help the homeless was disrupted by the pandemic. Short of providing shelter, the group works to offer some dignity to the downtrodden, such as washing clothes for free at a participating laundromat or providing a mobile shower service.

The goal, said MacCormick, is to bring the community together to address homelessness.

“Policing is a tool, but we want to get the community involved in coming up with a solution.”

Outreach work

City Net has been working in Westminster since April 2017.

The group’s contract calls for two outreach workers to engage with homeless people two half-days out of the week. Matt Bates, City Net’s vice president, said in a telephone interview that since 2017 his organization has helped 344 homeless people in Westminster leave the streets.

Bates was part of the city’s homelessness task force. He sees no clear path for Westminster to open a homeless shelter because of its dense development and the potential for community opposition.

“They’ve got a long road.”