Fullerton’s Hunt Library Branch Closes — but What’s This About ‘Homeless from Anaheim’?

Friend of the show <strike>Kimberly Wolfe<strike> Matt Leslie writes in The Fullerton Rag that Fullerton’s Hunt Library branch, which serves an area of the city (near Commonwealth and Brookhurst) that could certainly benefit from library access, is being closed indefinitely by the city’s Library Board, because they were told that “the library staff did not feel safe opening and closing the facility.”  (Disclosure: OJB “staffer” Ryan Cantor serves on that board and may have his own comments to add.)

Hunt Library in Fullerton

Photo snagged from fullertonsfuture.org Website, aka FFFF.  Forensic analysis from OJB  allows us to estimate that this photo was taken approximately 3-1/2 years ago.

Go read <strike>her</strike> his article for the details — including what the closure may mean for the building, given that its donation to the city is contingent on its remaining a library (unless the Hunt Foundation agrees to a change) — but there’s one detail that I think deserves to be fleshed out a bit.  I’ll quote just one paragraph of hers:

Reportedly, the library staff felt unsafe around a growing homeless population and at least one menacing dog (presumably not within the adjacent dog park). Both City Manager Joe Felz and Police Chief Dan Hughes attended the meeting. The Board’s members were told that new homeless people were arriving from Anaheim, and that they were not behaving in a way the population there generally has in the past. Officers were reported to have escorted staff to and from the building. It is not clear why OC Animal Control has not been able to take care of the dog.

(My emphasis added.)  This is, for the benefit of those unfamiliar with Fullerton, nowhere near the site of the new homeless shelter that the Supes want to build, so it wouldn’t seem to be related to that.  (It is close to the Armory at Brookhurst and Valencia, which is about to close for the “warm season.”)   The big news seems to be that (1) “new homeless people are arriving from Anaheim” (Northwest Anaheim being a few blocks south across the 91 — and not the location of the Armory)  and (2) these homeless are presumably, for this to be a reason to close down the branch, more menacing and/or violent than those that have been around there previously.

Some questions:

  • How do Fullerton city officials know that these homeless are coming in from Anaheim — rather than, say, the Armory?
  • What reason do these homeless give for moving from Anaheim?
  • (Someone is interviewing them — right?)
  • Has there been communication with the Anaheim police or other city government agencies about why this is happening?
  • Specifically, is this happening to some extent at the suggestion or instigation of the Anaheim Police Department?
  • How are the new homeless more menacing than their predecessors?
  • Where are their predecessors now?
  • Is there any explanation for why they are more violent?
  • What plans does Fullerton have to respond to this influx — beyond closing a library?

Homelessness is a city-wide — and a regional — problem.  If Anaheim is shunting its homelessness problem onto Fullerton, appropriate actors — and that may well mean the Supervisors or the legislator — have to step in.  Making people move across a city border is no solution.  Better provision of services — and, remember, the nearby Armory (at Brookhurst and Valencia) closes to the homeless for the “warm season” after this weekend — spread out over all areas of Orange County is.  (And if a particular area within OC doesn’t want to have homeless nearby, they can bloody well foot the bill for whoever takes them.)

Anyone who feels like doing some reporting is welcome to borrow any or all of my questions and report in below.


About Greg Diamond

Somewhat verbose attorney, semi-disabled and semi-retired, residing in northwest Brea. Occasionally ran for office against jerks who otherwise would have gonr unopposed. Got 45% of the vote against Bob Huff for State Senate in 2012; Josh Newman then won the seat in 2016. In 2014 became the first attorney to challenge OCDA Tony Rackauckas since 2002; Todd Spitzer then won that seat in 2018. Every time he's run against some rotten incumbent, the *next* person to challenge them wins! He's OK with that. Corrupt party hacks hate him. He's OK with that too. He does advise some local campaigns informally and (so far) without compensation. (If that last bit changes, he will declare the interest.) His daughter is a professional campaign treasurer. He doesn't usually know whom she and her firm represent. Whether they do so never influences his endorsements or coverage. (He does have his own strong opinions.) But when he does check campaign finance forms, he is often happily surprised to learn that good candidates he respects often DO hire her firm. (Maybe bad ones are scared off by his relationship with her, but they needn't be.)