AGENDA 21 RADIO

BY CHRISS STREET NEWPORT BEACH, CA.

Orange County officials have begun booting the thousands of homeless that now line the 35-mile stretch of the Santa Ana river from Prado Dam to the ocean.

The Santa Ana River is the largest river entirely within Southern California. It stretches from the San Bernardino Mountains to the River jetty at the northern end of Newport Beach. Over the last couple of years, a substantial portion of Orange County’s official count of 4,792 homeless have been camping along the river bed and the adjacent trails.

But that may be coming to an end, as OC Sheriffs Orange County have begun the first phase of clearing an area near the Angel’s Stadium where a homeless tent city stretches from the 5 Freeway to Ball Road. County maintenance workers have removed tons of trash that has included lots of alcohol bottles and many hypodermic needles.

The campers have made the County of Orange a laughing stock due to the high visibility of the multi-colored tents along the 22 Freeway.

California homeless even have their own leftist advocacy from the Western Regional Advocacy Project (WRAP) that was founded in 2005 by local social justice organizations across the West Coast to expose and eliminate the root causes of homelessness and poverty. WRAP blame the homeless boom on with Republican Presidents beginning with Ronald Reagan that have supported public safety approach that blames inequality and poverty “primarily on fixing “broken” people rather than the broken system.

The Democrat-controlled California Legislature has been pushing for “Homeless Person’s Bill of Rights” legislation since 2012 that would spend an extra $310 million a year to fund a new state bureaucracy and hygiene centers across the state. The Legislature’s most progressive wing is also advocating for the “Right to Rest Act” that would “protect the rights of homeless people to move freely, rest, eat, and perform religious observations in public space.” But the bill would really give the right to live in any legally parked car.

Last year’s epic floods cleared out the communities, but the campers came back quickly this spring. Even efforts by the OC Public Works to cement in the sides of the river, so there is no over pass crawl spaces, has not deterred the homeless squatters.

Breitbart News has been reporting that a deadly California hepatitis A outbreak that started in homeless communities and now stretches from San Diego north to Redding, is on the verge of reaching statewide epidemic status. The California Department of Public Health announced that in the first two weeks of January, there were 688 cases of hepatitis A and 22 deaths. Inoculations have been offered to homeless, but usually will not comply.

Orange County Register has reported that the ACLU has filed a federal lawsuit against the County of Orange for efforts to fence off homeless entrants to the Santa Ana River, because the “residents are trapped within the confines of the 6-foot chain-link fences.” The County is also sued regularly for allegedly destroying homeless property when the during trash clean-ups.

There are homeless beds in shelters funded private charities and government across the County. But those shelters often have rigid rules that the homeless do not want to follow, plus many of the homeless want to stay under the radar due to legal issues.