Orange County is entering winter again without a dedicated emergency weather shelter for homeless people looking for refuge from rain or plunging temperatures, but increased bed space in year-round shelters and a hotel stay program should offer relief, county officials say.
Storms this Christmas week could bring total rainfall of upwards of 4 inches along coastal areas and 5 to 9 inches in the foothills, according to the National Weather Service.
For years, the county had offered cold-weather shelters at the National Guard armories in Santa Ana and Fullerton. The walk-in shelters offered up to 200 beds a night and were open from as early as October to April. They have not been available for the past three years.
“The cold weather shelters are services that have evolved so much over the last 10 years,” said Doug Becht, the director of the county’s Office of Care Coordination. “With the amount of year-round shelters we’ve brought on board, our approach to outreach has evolved in a way that is able to help more and more people who are experiencing homelessness.”
Orange County currently offers 3,920 beds across 61 shelters — a significant increase since before the pandemic.
The two major county shelters, Yale Navigation Center and Bridges at Kraemer Place, are typically more than 95% occupied on any given night, Becht said. But the moment a bed becomes available, he said the county’s outreach team works quickly to fill it.
The team also canvases daily to ensure that as many people as possible are sheltered ahead of extreme weather events, he said.
Becht said the county is willing to fund a cold weather shelter model, but finding a suitable operator and host city has been challenging. None of the county’s 34 cities have agreed to host a countywide winter shelter, like Fullerton and Santa Ana had in the past, he said. During COVID the armories were no longer available.
In recent years, Santa Ana officials and residents have pushed back against hosting the seasonal shelter, arguing that they’ve been unfairly burdened with providing services to homeless people from all over the county.
“We’ve done a lot of work partnering with the 34 cities with what they need,” Becht said. “Right now, the cities feel what they have is sufficient.”
Not every person on the street qualifies for a bed in a city-run shelter, meaning there remains a need for an emergency option during bad weather, said Michael Sean Wright, the director of field medicine for the Lestonnac Free Clinic and founder of Wound Walk OC
“Folks who become unhoused or housing-unstable do not adhere to a calendar,” he said. “If you happen to land unhoused during times of inclement weather, there are no opportunities for you. To hear a county of this size with tens of millions of dollars to say, ‘We’ve done enough.’ Look outside your window today and ask if you’ve done enough.”
Wright, whose group provides wound care and street medicine to people experiencing homelessness, said he and his team will be out on the streets over the next few days handing out emergency blankets, socks, medicine and other provisions.
The 2024 Point in Time count recorded more than 7,300 people in Orange County without stable shelter, 4,173 of whom were living on the streets — a 37% increase from two years before. A new count will be conducted from Jan. 27 to 29.
Homeless deaths in Orange County have dropped by 40% since 2023, but more than 300 people died this year, according to data from the county coroner.
From January to the end of April, elementary school students and their families in need of shelter will be able to stay at motels during severe storms or extreme cold, as part of an initiative launched last winter by Second District Supervisor Vicente Sarmiento.
The Weather Activated Rooms for Families, or W.A.R.M., program will provide students and families in North Orange County with temporary shelter as well as food, transportation to and from school and other wraparound services.
The OC Board of Supervisors recently approved the allocation of $150,000 to the nonprofit Pathways of Hope, which operates the program. The money, which comes out of Sarmiento’s Second District discretionary funds, covers the costs of motel stays, food assistance and program administration.
“We felt it’s important to provide relief for families of elementary school students,” Sarmiento said. “For them to be in cold weather and still make it to school is really challenging.”
Sarmiento, who chairs the county’s Commission to Address Homelessness, said the county has expanded year-round shelter spaces and congregant housing options in the past few years. That has significantly reduced the need for a seasonal shelter at the armories.
“We’re in a much better place,” he said, “in terms of providing shelter space for people compared to where we were when the cold weather shelters were available.”