The following was first published in the Voice of OC. 

Orange County has long been a national symbol of affluence.

Its median income ranks among the top 3 percent of all counties nationwide. It boasts a county budget topping $3 billion. Its economy is larger than more than half of all U.S. states.

It is also plagued by a grinding and deadly homelessness crisis that gets worse by the day. With all of the resources at its disposal, why, then, can’t the county find an effective way to help thousands of its most vulnerable residents?

A new report (Download .pdf) by the ACLU of Southern California asks that and many other questions —and astoundingly, elected officials in this rich and resourceful county cry poverty. “It’s not for lack of sympathy and understanding that our hands are tied,” Board Supervisor Shawn Nelson argued during a recent budget hearing, “Orange County does not have the ability to do what other counties have done.”

To its credit, the county hasn’t ignored the issue. In 2010, the Board of Supervisors approved a Ten-Year Plan to End Homelessness, which called for creating more permanent affordable housing—a strategy that studies show is the most effective way to end homelessness. But the ACLU SoCal report finds that today, more than six years later, the county is failing to follow its own blueprint.

County officials originally drew up the Ten-Year Plan to qualify for homelessness services from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. But stagnant or shrinking state and federal funds don’t come close to meeting the need. The ACLU SoCal report estimates that Orange County could effectively end homelessness by spending about $55 million per year above what it receives from federal and state sources. That represents only 1.7 percent of the county’s $3.2 billion budget.

As county officials steadfastly refuse to step up investments in local resources that are key to the Ten-Year Plan’s success, thousands of people literally have nowhere to live. The number of people experiencing homelessness per year increased by 20 percent from 2013 to 2015, local encampments are exploding, and according to Orange County Sheriff-Coroner data, the number of homeless deaths per year doubled from 2009 to 2015.

As noted in the ACLU SoCal report, affordable housing waitlists drag on for years, and the development of permanent supportive housing doesn’t come close to meeting the demand. Given the county’s sky-high rents, market-rate housing is simply out of reach for people experiencing homelessness.

The county’s refusal to spend money on real solutions to these problems will end up costing the taxpayers even more. Permanent affordable housing is ultimately cheaper than the expense of jail time, emergency room treatment and other harsh measures faced by individuals who are chronically homeless. Given that only 0.14 percent of the Orange County’s population is homeless—lower than the national average of 0.18 percent—the overall cost of housing them is minimal.

Orange County would do well to follow the example of cities, counties, and states that have successfully reduced homelessness by creating dedicated sources of funding to support housing-first strategies. Housing trust funds are one example—they are designed to bring in dedicated sources of funding for affordable housing, such as fees or loan repayments. The county, cities, corporations, and philanthropic organizations could contribute to the fund to support a coordinated, regional solution to homelessness.

Housing is critical to ending homelessness, but it is only part of the picture. Orange County must reverse course on policies that criminalize homelessness. The county and 33 out of its 34 cities have passed  misguided laws that ban innocent behaviors that homeless individuals cannot avoid, such as sleeping and camping in public.

These laws don’t fulfill their intended purpose, namely, to rid cities of homeless people. Because almost all Orange County cities have ordinances on the books that criminalize, there are few options for relocation and many people decide to stay in place and put up with police harassment.

Such policies only exacerbate the homelessness crisis by ensnaring people in the criminal justice system. People may find it more difficult to escape homelessness when they are burdened with hefty court fees and fines for violating nuisance ordinances and traumatized by police harassment. To get a little relief, some end up in isolated places such as dry riverbeds, foothills, and remote industrial areas, where they are both socially and geographically marginalized. Pushed into the margins, many lack basic necessities, such as food, restroom facilities, and even fresh drinking water.

The report urges the county to take a leadership role in ending these harmful policies.  It should follow the federal government’s lead in condemning criminalization, repeal ordinances that criminalize homelessness, and in allocating federal, state, and local funds, give priority to cities that do not criminalize homelessness.

The fact is, there is nothing preventing Orange County from scaling up their housing-first strategy and ending homelessness for good, except the political will to do so.

Eve Garrow is homelessness policy analyst and advocate at the ACLU of Southern California.

A version of the following blog appeared in the Voice of OC

On the morning of Aug. 1, two Santa Ana police officers stopped a homeless man named Richard Gene Swihart for riding his bicycle in the Civic Center plaza.

A few minutes later, Richard was rushed to a hospital — the officers had shot him multiple times. On Aug. 14, Richard died of his wounds.

The aftermath of the fatal police shooting was captured on video and posted on YouTube, but the circumstances that led to the initial confrontation remain murky.

Police officials did not discuss the shooting at all until receiving press inquiries, then would only say that Richard was hostile and tried to grab a gun from one of the officers. The Santa Ana Police Department did not publicly disclose that Richard had died until Aug. 31 – 17 days after his death – and it still has not, more than five weeks after the shooting, identified the officers involved.

While the details of the shooting remain shrouded in mystery, the underlying cause is clear – Richard might still be alive if it were not for an ongoing campaign to criminalize homelessness in Orange County.

Every day, police harass homeless individuals in Santa Ana and other Orange County cities for violating nuisance ordinances that criminalize everything from riding a bike to simply trying to find a place to sleep. These ordinances are designed not to ensure safety, but to sweep a vulnerable population out of public view.

Now, the situation is poised to become worse.

On the evening of Sept. 6, the Santa Ana City Council passed a resolution calling for stepped-up enforcement of code violations around the Civic Center, where an estimated 450 people are living in tents.

In the resolution, the Santa Ana City Council declared a “public health and safety crisis” at the Civic Center and called for stricter enforcement to provide a safe environment for government employees and members of the public in and around the complex.

There is indeed a crisis – but the crisis is the result of failed government policies.

Public health concerns in the Civic Center, for example, stem from the city’s refusal to provide basic services like storage space, showers, and adequate public restroom facilities for people who have no other place. Hours before the Santa Ana City Council meeting, the Orange County Board of Supervisors addressed some of those concerns by voting to fast-track the conversion of a nearby defunct transit center into a hub for temporary shelter and services.

But the larger issue of the aggressive law enforcement approach to homelessness remains. If Santa Ana is serious about enhancing the safety of people living outdoors, it must cease punishing people for being homeless.

The city must also be held accountable for Richard's death, and the Santa Ana Police Department must be completely transparent about the circumstances leading up to his death, starting with the release of the names of the officers involved.

SAPD has not indicated if the two officers involved are still serving on the Civic Center Patrol Unit and interacting with the same people who were present during Richard’s shooting.

Santa Ana Police Cpl. Anthony Bertagna told the Orange County Register that the two officers involved received special training on how to interact with people experiencing homelessness and mental illness. Richard's death calls into question SAPD’s policies and training. Left unanswered is whether SAPD employed de-escalation tactics before using lethal force.

The community deserves answers to these questions. Without full information about what happened in the shooting, the public cannot determine if SAPD is operating appropriately, or hold it accountable if it is not.

According to his best friend, Richard was an upbeat man who liked to crack jokes. One resident of the Civic Center recalled his love of chess. He was only 32 when he died. To honor his life, community groups are hosting a vigil on Wednesday, Sept. 14 at 9 a.m., near the Plaza of the Flags in the Civic Center Plaza.

Eve Garrow is homelessness policy analyst and advocate and Jennifer Rojas is community engagement and policy advocate at the ACLU of Southern California.

Death of L.A. teen at hands of cops was caught on tape. But refusal to release video has some questioning policies, use nationwide.

By Peter Bibring and Catherine Wagner

The following article was first published in USA Today.

Earlier this month, a too familiar tragedy unfolded in East Los Angeles when Los Angeles police officers shot and killed 14-year-old Jesse Romero. Witness accounts vary — the police department says Romero fled when officers approached him on suspicion of scrawling graffiti in his neighborhood, then fired at officers. Some civilians say he had a gun but tossed it away.

As is increasingly common, the incident was captured on officers’ body cameras.

Los Angeles officials have touted body cameras as a way to provide transparency and accountability and build trust between police and the public in moments of crisis. But that’s not how it has played out because the LAPD’s policies for body cameras don’t provide transparency or assure the public that officers will be held accountable.

Instead, the department has stated that it generally holds videos from public viewunless ordered by a court to release them. Romero's family has called for the footage to be released.

According to LAPD policy, officers are able to review body cam footage before talking to investigators. Instead of promoting transparency and trust, LAPD’s body camera program has resulted in more questions than answers.

When body cameras were proposed nationwide, there seemed to be wide agreement they could be a game-changer for police interactions, oversight and community relations. Public support has been through the roof. And body cameras have provided important evidence in at least some of the rare decisions to fire or criminally charge officers for shootings or dishonesty.   But as departments put cameras on the streets, the evidence of their effectiveness has been much more mixed. An early study of the small police force in Rialto, Calif., found that officers wearing cameras are much less likely to use force or to be subject to complaints from civilians.

But other studies are far less conclusive, with at least one showing an increase in the use of lower-level force, and another that use of force increases when officers have more discretion over when to activate cameras. Against this ambiguous backdrop, police reform advocates have raised concerns about the cameras’ privacy implications, surveillance potential and susceptibility to misuse.

Despite these questions, departments nationwide are moving to adopt body cameras. It is vital that those departments have strong policies that ensure cameras are used for accountability, not surveillance.

Departments must clearly require officers to record every investigative interaction with a member of the public. While constant recording could risk civilians’ and officers’ privacy, departments can — and must — monitor compliance and discipline those who fail to record when they should. Officers who repeatedly fail to record incidents should be identified and corrected — or fired — long before they’re involved in a serious incident.

When there’s a shooting or other investigation, policies must require officers to give initial accounts of what happened and why they acted as they did before watching the body camera video. Seeing the video allows cops who are inclined to lie to tailor their story to the evidence. Even for officers who try to tell the truth, seeing the video will impact how they remember an incident. What helps investigators piece together the whole truth is the officers’ subjective memory of what they thought at the time. The police don’t let other witnesses watch the video of a shooting before providing a statement, or show other suspects the evidence in a case before interviewing them. Police shouldn’t have such an advantage.

Video of shootings and other potential misconduct must be released, pursuant to policies that ensure they don’t just get out when it helps the officers. Transparency allows the public to judge for themselves whether police are acting in keeping with a community’s values, and whether the institutions charged with holding officers accountable are working.

Finally, departments should clearly prohibit use of body cameras as surveillance tools. Video shouldn’t be accessed unless there’s reason to think it contains evidence of crime or misconduct, and data-mining tools such as facial recognition mustn’t be used on the video. Moreover, strict limits should be placed on how long footage is retained. The public supports body cameras as tools for police accountability.  Mission creep into surveillance should be stopped at the outset.

The policies that govern the use of body cameras matter. Sadly, a recent study shows many departments’ policies are seriously flawed, if they have any public policy on the cameras at all. This can and must be fixed.

Body cameras will never be a cure-all for police misconduct or the crisis of confidence in law enforcement that many of us feel. But if they are to be any help at all — and they could be — they must be done right.

Peter Bibring is director of police practices and senior staff attorney at the ACLU of SoCal; Catherine Wagner is staff attorney at the ACLU SoCal.