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Judge David O. Carter’s position and involvement in the homeless issue may exhibit character, but in his processes and decisions lack even traces of intelligence.
The Judge waded into the homeless pond without a second thought of the depth of the water, unable to swim and unwilling to learn how to swim.
The person that I see in the court is without a doubt the most ignorant ineffective administrator alive on the planet; also without a doubt he an idiot and idiot of the 33rd degree and scion of an ancestral procession of idiots stretching back to the missing link.
It puzzles me to make out how the same mind could construct the knowledgeable words in court while his actions are so incongruous. Puzzles fret me, puzzles annoy me, puzzles exasperate me; and always for a moment they arouse in me an unkind state of mind toward a person that has puzzled me.
A day, a week, a month from now my resentment will not fade. But in that resentment I will pray for the judge. No, not really – as I have to spend all my time praying for the lives of the homeless people left on the streets to die. But while there is still time I’d like to see the judge take a dose of his own processes involving the poor, sick and needy.
The Judge needs to go stay in Bridges at Kraemer or the Court Yard for a week; these places are where obscure strains of bacteria go for their vacations. I can’t say whether the bodily fluids are part of the original design or the natural consequences of unkempt and under serviced individuals.
Have you noticed the lovely murals on the walls at the Court Yard? Oh wait, there are no walls. Note the double pane windows for a secure environment. Oh, sorry, there are none. Stay warm on a cold night with your blanket as there is no heat. Stay hydrated on the hot days as there is nary a breeze.
I’m sure my anger is of no concern to the judge, but perhaps still, extending at least some of the lives of many homeless people, the sick, the poor and the needy could be his service to mankind. Of course it is too late for the 100s of homeless people that have died since he took the unbridled reins and left them… unbridled!
“Thank you” he has repeated time and again to the city and county representatives that have done nothing. Thanks for nothing while the people die on the streets. Praise be to the cities and county that have done nothing! Praise be to the people that come into the court and lie on a bi weekly basis!
It has been over 6 months since the eviction from the River Bed and the days are measured in the deaths on the street. The problems have increased, enforcement has increased, the reactionary movement of NIMBY fanatics calling for the death of the homeless people stands out in daily rants on various web sites. And the Board of Supervisors laughs behind the Judge’s back… but then it would take a back bone to have a back and this Judge lacks that. He is all weak front, just a front and nothing more, all words and nothing more… or so it seems so far.
“Housing now for the homeless” he cries. He did cry this from the very beginning of his ineffective administration of the failing homeless agendas. As the cities bustle with the construction of thousands of top tier apartments and Condos opening on a daily basis there’s still nothing for the thousands of suffering people on the streets.
I reiterate honorable Judge: that this is the murder by open neglect of homeless people in numbers that reach 1 per day in the summer months and ask, beg for respite.
It was during the My Lai massacre that a brave American pilot Hugh Clowers Thompson Jr landed between the murderous Calley’s platoon saving many innocent men, women and children from certain death on that fateful day in Vietnam infamy. Who will stand up and stop these days, months and years of massacre that will live in Orange County infamy!
Certainly not the Judge that we know, the judge we have heard repeat the same BS, lavishing the same praise week after week for the worthless intentions of political hacks.
Final thought: The judge could put facts to process, words to action, accept no excuses, believe no lies and in doing so might, could, perhaps, land his helicopter between the murderous political forces, point his legal guns in their faces and force the issue to a reasonable solution based on federal, state and county standards laid down decades ago. And in doing so he could possibly disassociate himself with the murderous political insanity and the eternal damnation which homeless assassins have so remorselessly earned and do so richly deserve.
Adieu, adieu, adieu!
Fingal O’Flahertie
With special thanks to Mark Twain
[EDITOR’S NOTE: The OJ Blog will be reporting, as usual, from tomorrow’s Carterpalooza – this one in the wake of the 9th Circuit’s ruling against criminalizing sleeping in public when there’s no beds available. Let’s see if THIS TIME FINALLY the good Judge’s bite matches his bark when it comes to the feckless OC politicians who will once again be lining up before him. – Vern]
The worst thing about this utterly asinine torn used diaper of a post is that when Judge Carter, having gone through the step-by-step path that he needs to travel in order to get whatever plans he can force through to be upheld at all appellate levels beyond his trial court — a path of which Finagle seems to be blissfully ignorant — Finagle will want us to believe that it only happened due to the pressure he and his allies imposed.
The first step is, as Carter understands, to goose cities into productive action on their own, in ways they choose, by spiking their anti-camping ordinances if they’re ineffective. Likely later steps include broadening the scope of the communities covered by his orders beyond OC — because it’s NOT in fact fair for OC to be the only county under the gun here — and then when voiding anti-camping ordinance doesn’t work he may have to fine those cities who refuse to be part of the solution by either providing housing or subsidizing other communities who do so with their tax dollars.
Whatever magic fairy dust you think he can blow onto the problem short of that does not exist. And he’s having to do this in a political and judicial environment where Trump is President and Brett Kavanaugh is about to be placed on the Supreme Court by forces that don’t give a jolly quarter-crap about the lives of the homeless and would love to see Judge Carter tied to a stake and burned for doing as much as he has been doing. Your contribution is to be the monkey climbing onto his back and pulling his ears and hair.
And — far from having his back — you’re accusing him of complicity in murder! Are you transcendently stupid, or just engaging in some kind of performance art? That he continues to try to move the ball down the field while being ravaged in print by ingrates such as you is a testament to his character, although after reading this one could hardly blame him for saying “to hell with it all” and passing the baton to some other judge who will just say “sorry, but this is all beyond my power.”
If this comment sounds strongly worded, that’s intentional. This blog is my journalistic home, even though Vern owns it, and if we’re going to print sorry crap like this it is going to be accompanied by an equal and opposite renunciation of it, so readers don’t get the idea that we;re all feeble ingrates. Enjoy your discussion, Finagle.
This piece in the VOC by Norberto, currently on the feed in our sidebar, is much better: https://voiceofoc.org/2018/09/santana-oc-lack-of-progress-on-homelessness-is-tragic-could-it-soon-be-illegal/.
Greg, Study Jones and Martin cases , you are the one that is printing sorry crap Greg.
Blissfully ignorant Angela (or whatever her real name might be, if not that) has posted replies like this in quite a few places below. I’ve given a substantive answer to only one of them — you can read it here http://www.orangejuiceblog.com/2018/09/fingal-savages-the-honorable-judge-david-carter/comment-page-1/#comment-1023356 — and other than putting this link to that comment up front I am ignoring the rest. If she’s going to keep putting the same baselessly insulting challenge all over the place, I’ll delete all but one and answer that one.
Greg, Legal Aid has filed a case regarding disabilities which judge Carter has admitted himself he is ignoring at this time. You should look into that case also Greg.
In the mean time Greg, people are dying. Anaheim PD is still arresting people even though shelters are full. My question to you is how many more people need to die needlessly????
You can try to show off how smart you think you are but bottom line is people are suffering and dying on the streets and in the shelters . It does not need to be this way. We can sit here and argue about legal rulings but my question is how can we end the suffering???
We as a society are failing. 80 year old women living in parks. Seriously disabled living in the streets. I might be ignorant to how all this legal stuff works but it is certainly not blissful. My friends are dying in the streets in ever-increasing numbers.
Greg, I really tried to understand your posts. I admit I don’t know as much as you. I am asking you Greg. Please help me understand what can be done to end the suffering? I did post several times because I’m desperate for an answer. If you really are as smart as you say you are, I’m begging you how can we help the ever-increasing number of homeless?
We aren’t even addressing the true causes of homelessness. If homelessness is increasing in so many places, what are the true causes? Our society is in decline, income inequality is growing, humans are being replaced by robots, please Greg, what should we do next? I’m anxiously waiting for your reply.
We need smart people like you to help. Thank you for clarifying the rulings for me. The information was helpful.
Agreed. I have no idea what it ever saw the light of day.
It’s not funny or helpful.
It also misses the bigger problem which is a judge (plus entourage) wandering around the County in a well-publicized effort to develop public policy, or at least influence it – which is not his job.
You’re not a lawyer, Zenger, and you don’t know what you’re talking about here.
His responsibility is to uphold the law. Arguably, that would mean immediately voiding all anti-camping ordinances in OC if there are not enough shelters. Arguably, IF he found that cities had a responsibility to provide safe places for their homeless (which would probably be routed in the unenumerated right to travel within the country), it would also include issuing court orders against cities to satisfy certain constitutional requirements and then fining the piss out of them when they didn’t comply.
That’s what he can do as a federal judge. However, you’d be among the first of accusing him of judicial overreach if he did so without being on extremely good footing — and there’s the possibility that an appellate court would agree, even though it wouldn’t likely have any idea how to actually preserve constitutional rights.
So, then, in his capacity as a federal judge deciding a significant constitutional case, Judge Carter is NOT lowering the boom right away but is seeking input from the community and affected parties as to what remedies he can reasonably impose. That’s *absolutely* within the scope of his job — although few judges have both the desire and the chops to do that part of their job appropriately.
The fact that Carter has gone about this so cleverly and productively, keeping an eye on the legitimate rights of plaintiffs, the appropriateness of burdens placed upon cities, and the jaundiced eyes of the appellate courts, make Finagle’s stupid criticisms of him all the more offensive. You, as the anti-Finagle in this drama, should at least be able to recognize how the court system works.
Study Jones and Martin cases before you post
It takes a few good people to help the homeless when there is little or no aid from the county or cities. Linda, Dave, Pat, Rebecca, Lou, Jeanine, Dennis – they give unlimited time to helping the people off the streets and have succeeded with a few.
Jeanine worked with one couple and I helped. We drove them to all their meetings and doctors for weeks. We eventually had to go to the mayor and even city manager to keep one woman in an apartment.
Hundreds of millions of our tax dollars are supposed to pay for this support called “Wrap Around Services”.
For those that sit on the sidelines and write on a computer I say –
People are dying for no good reason, people are responsible, the judge has taken that responsibility on his own terms and has failed ….so far.
Don’t you think that Finagle can speak for himself here, Michael? Vern says that he’s a homeless advocate, so one might suspect that he’s someone on your list. Since he’s not seen fit to reply, but will presumably feel similarly to you, I’ll treat you as his spokesperson here. Of course it would be totally improper to comment under one’s own name in praise of one’s own piece, so I do not accuse you personally of Finagling.
(1) No, it does not “take a few good people to help the homeless.” It takes a few good people to do *what they can do*, but as significant as it may seem to them and to those whom they help, it’s seriously a drop in the bucket. If you appreciate what the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeal did in the recent Idaho case — and you should, because it’s of far greater significance than the efforts of you and those you name, and will prove to be a major aid in your efforts — then you should appreciate Judge Carter, because he’s fighting the same battle as those brave judges on the Ninth Circuit.
(2) Time is not unlimited.
(3) “Succeeding with a few” is laudable, but it’s also failing to succeed with many — which is pretty much what Finagle accuses Judge Carter of doing.
(4) Your volunteering with respect to the people you helped is laudable. It does not justify even one letter’s worth of Finagle’s “savage attack” on Judge Carter.
(5) I don’t know what exactly you, or Finagle, think that Judge Carter should be doing to ensure that Wrap Around Services are effective, but whatever it is you think is probably wrong, because so far as I can tell THE CASE BEFORE HIM does not have to do with wrap-around services, but with simple provision of lodging itself (and maybe some accompanying aspects that make that lodging safe), and he has no right to act on other matters until and unless A CASE BEFORE HIM addresses them. Finagle doesn’t seem to get that, which is part of what makes his rant so ignorance.
(6) As to “sitting on the sidelines … writing on a computer,” cram it. Even what I’m doing right here, correcting Finagle’s misplaced attacks on Judge Carter, is a serious contribution to the status of the homeless, and far from my first. Decide how badly you’d like to take me on on this point.
(7) On the contrary, people are dying for A GOOD reason: because no law requires society to provide for them adequately and there are further good reasons (dealing with concepts like “moral hazard” and limits on judicial power that I’ll leave to a later comment) about which you seem to know nothing. People are dying across the world for lack of food, medicine, and water, for GOOD reasons as well — and our legal and moral ability to get around those reasons without trampling people’s rights is a delicate and intricate task.
(8) “People are responsible”? That’s pretty vague. Which people? In what way are they “responsible” (legally? morally?) — and achieving what ends does that “responsibility” entail? Because I’ll tell you — people as a while DO NOT believe that they are responsible for saving every life on the planet or even within their own communities; let alone assuring every living being a certain level of comfort. (That verdict generally becomes evident when ballots are tallied in elections, where the “we must force people to devote all their resources to benefit their fellow humans” platform generally gets stomped in the returns.) in fact, people GENERALLY believe that if you can’t afford to live in a certain area you should just get the hell out of there — which leads to the unconstitutional outcomes that Judge Carter (but NOT, frankly, you or Finagle) are fighting.
(9) You and Finagle, in childlike innocence, misconstrue what “responsibility” the judge has taken on. He has absolutely NOT taken on the responsibility of ensuring that anyone who comes into Orange County will necessarily have a safe (let along comfortable) place to sleep, He has taken on the responsibility of determining whether cities can enforce their anti-vagrancy and related laws, and under what conditions — and he has taken on the responsibility (as few judges would) of working with cities to help him fashion court orders that are as responsible and bearable as possible while still meeting the floor standards imposed by the Constitution and other laws,
(10) What Carter is doing is hard work, requiring skills and courage orders of magnitude greater than driving a few people around to get services and declaring oneself absolved of moral responsibility. If you don’t understand what he’s doing, that’s on you, not him. If Finagle doesn’t understand that Judge Carter didn’t promise complete success and isn’t even in the business of trying to assure it, then that’s on him, not on Carter. Finagle — and you, if you agree with him — owe Carter a major apology here and owe THE HOMELESS THEMSELVES an apology for undermining one of the few public officials who is trying to address the homeless problem lawfully, meaningfully, and to more than a modest degree.
If you know Finagle, please pass on the word to him. (Or her.)
I was there he said “I take it all on no other judges will be involved”
Guess you had to be there for the last 100 hours of the judges court to know anything. He showed homes built in days and said “build them or else” and then he said at another court session “Build them or else” and then at another court session he said “Build them or else” shall I go on, is this boring you? Guess you have to be committed and be there, put in the time. Or write about it on a computer looking through rose colored glasses. REALLY Skewered ROSE colored glasses! I look at the coroners reports while the judge talks and talks and talks and talks and talks and talks “etc etc etc” as Yul Brenner would say.
What he should do is obvious the same thing they do to slum lords.
From 8 pm to 8 am every morning the BOS members spend the nights in the Kramer shelter till 2,500 apartments with wrap around services are built. The can go home on the weekends.
They will be built in 3 to 6 months
The judge does not care he is apathetic –
Apathy is a lack of feeling, emotion, interest, and concern. Apathy is a state of indifference, or the suppression of emotions such as concern, excitement, motivation, or passion. … An apathetic person may also exhibit insensibility or sluggishness.
I have a shirt that says it “do something right now…No”
AHHH I will send one to the judge!
Sorry that I missed this comment before.
He can’t uphold that pledge if the presiding judge in his district (or if the appellate district above him) takes the case away from him. If you don’t know that that could happen, if for example he tries unconstitutional crap like what you apparently think is appropriate, then you’ve just learned something. Rest assured that HE is aware of the possibility.
See the comment I’m about the post in reply to Angela for more info. [Updated to add: it’s here.]
“In any situation, the best thing you can do is the right thing; the next best thing you can do is the wrong thing; the worst thing you can do is nothing.”
To experience the life of a homeless person on drugs I got ripped on ripple the other day. I attempted to sleep on a park bench and found it uncomfortable even in my inebriated state thus proving the discomfort of the homeless in my existentially warped mind. But are they all inebriated and are they even worthy of a glimmer of apathy or empathy as I read here in these comments. Perhaps apathy is not the word let’s try dehumanize. As we dehumanize any inferior people’s they become easy to erase from our minds and efforts to save them. When the judge goes home it is gone from his mind. Perhaps even in court the judge’s words are like vapor evaporating on the breeze of the frigid air of superiority that permeates the court. “You must build NOW” is gone on the wind and carried away, over shadowed by the gaseous waste from the bloated Supervisors posteriors.
So are the homeless people just damned to a slow death on the streets???
The damnable in society are just that, doomed.
They are “doomed” to be damned, damned to be “doomed”.
The dysfunctional brain of a scurrilous Richard Milhous Nixon articulated the unforgettable expression “Fuck the Doomed”, and here we are…the inane marching orders from the dark recesses of mankind- carried out by flatulent politicians, and the judge.
Don’t be a sock puppet. Publish under one name only.
“…the gaseous waste from the bloated Supervisors posteriors.”
In technical circles that’s called LFG – landfill gas.
I would remind those that were not there in court the very first day – the Judge showed homes on TV monitors and said “Build Housing Now Or Else the Full Weight of this Court Will Come Down on You”!.
Then did nothing, forced nothing, left the people to die.
How sad it is…
Then he “did nothing”? You’re an idiot.
Study Jones and Martin cases to see what what real judges do
Fingal (pen-name for a homeless advocate) may be a little histrionic and wrong-headed here, but I know this is the same way a LOT of homeless advocates – folks who’ve been taking care of OC’s homeless people individually every day in the six months since the Riverbed Eviction – have been feeling recently, as they’ve watched ONE HUNDRED homeless people die since being thrown off the river and out of the motels, in a process partly led by Carter.
I’m still trying to make sense out of today’s hearing – apparently the promised housing and shelter beds are GRADUALLY getting closer under the prodding of a more and more impatient judge, but the beds are still 30 to 90 days off, if we’re even to believe the politicians and nothing goes wrong.
What I’m confused about is the fate of our anti-camping and anti-storage ordinances, as we wait for these far-off beds, in the wake of the 9th Circuit making Jones the law of the land. Several authorities who would seem to know tell me that those are unenforceable now, until enough beds are available for all those on the street.
That’s what Mayor Tait himself thinks. And yet Anaheim spokesman Mike Lyster tells me, “This changes nothing, because our ordinances were always in accordance with Jones. We never arrest or criminalize someone for being homeless, but for another offense like “CAMPING” (i.e. having a tent) or BLOCKING A SIDEWALK.
I think we have to have our new City Attorney give a binding opinion on this, AND strict instructions to the police department. Same in other towns. Anyway here’s Brooke Weitzman (attorney for the advocates) and Mayor Tait giving a press conference after the deal. I’ll see if I can cobble together a longer report over the weekend…
Legal aid is working on it all weekend to some end????
Legal aid asked for the TRO at the beginning of the lawsuit and the judge forgot.
The police are crafty choosing the arrests carefully to block the lawyers or just make it too difficult for them to handle it all.
The judge “forgot”?
You don’t know what the hell you’re talking about. I doubt that you even know what showing is required for a temporary restraining order and what the effect is if one is granted.
Study Jones and Martin before you post
The cure to someone “blocking a sidewalk” — that is, rendering it impassable — is to wake them up if need be and have them move until there is a passable path.
If Anaheim thinks that camping ordinances are going to survive Jones — that, in other words, people can sleep in the streets and parks but can’t do so in tents — then the city is going to be litigated into bankruptcy. I hope that the City Attorney is, like most small mammals, smarter than Mike Lyster.
If Finagle were only “*a little* histrionic and wrong-headed here,” I wouldn’t bother taking him on. He’s damaging the very process that can do something significant to help the homeless by squalling like a toddler. Defending him makes things worse.
It may well be that homeless advocates who applaud themselves for driving a few homeless people around sometimes think *all sorts* of things. At this point, though, I would not take the word of homeless advocates as to FACTS like the number of deaths that have occurred since the removals from the Santa Ana Riverbed. Sorry, but that’s what happens when you publish shit like this — you lose credibility. If there are reliable figures as to how many have died — who they are, and how they died — that can be attributed to the judges orders, then this blog should print them. That, unlike Finagle’s ignorant and woolly-headed rant, would be a public service.
Even if people have died since the removal, though, it would not follow that Judge Carter’s order — let alone his arrangement to keep people in motels — were legally wrong. There are — and should be — some limits to his power; he has to respect them. One thing he’s done successfully so far is to prevent himself from being taken off of the case and seeing it given to some other federal judge who wouldn’t give a damn — an outcome that homeless advocates like Finagle would seem to prefer. Or maybe they’re seriously too ignorant to know that that could happen.
We have no responsibility to defend kind-hearted but ignorant activists when they’re this wrong.
I think the judge and all the politicians need to live in these shelters for a few weeks and see if they can function normally.
The homeless are being locked in illegally at Bridges which Spitzer thinks is the golden standard. It’s called ‘false imprisonment’.
In the mean time more homeless are dying like David Doan who had a stroke after being forced to go to the Courtyard.
Anaheim PD from the city of kindness and happiest place on earth thrives off of arresting homeless. The shelters are full of bed bugs and MRSA and mold.
We are devolving as a species. It’s very sad to witness. I think anyone involved in these decisions should live in the shelters that they are building for us. They are separating people from their partners and their animals. Truly cruel!! God help us all!
Yes Yes like slumlords
They stay in Kramer shelter from 8 pm to 8 am every day and go home on the weekends till 2,500 apartments with wrap around services are open – I would give it 6 months tops!
The more I think about this post, the more unfair it seems. The author seems to blame Carter for not sticking to his verbal threats to the cities along the course of his well-publicized peregrinations about the county.
If anything, the judge should be chastised popping off in the first place, not for failing to be some sort of unelected, unaccountable tyrant-from-the-bench.
A judge’s job is not to wade into the weedy morass of policy development and implementation. His job is to apply case law to a legal action. This is why we have three divisions in government. The judicial has no business performing the legislative and executive functions. Some thoughtless people cheered when Carter emerged from his cloister to solve the homeless problem in OC. They shouldn’t have.
You may have skipped over my argument above for why he legitimately needs more facts to fashion a remedy. My position has been that he probably has all he needs right now to impose a de facto tax on cities that don’t allow homeless camping — in the form of court orders followed by fines for non-compliance — but my guess is that you wouldn’t want to see that (and would indeed be among the loudest voices complaining about it.) Well, figuring out what remedies are possible and sufficient is the alternative to that more draconian approach — so you should watch out what you wish for. He’s being prudent as hell while moving things forward as much as he reasonably can. We should applaud him.
Study Jones and Martin cases before you post to see what real judges do!
There should have been a restraining order in place a long time ago against anti-camping. Look at the Jones case and now the Martin case. Also judge Carter refuses to address disability issues. Fingal may be ranting but he does have a point. This judge has been useless. He just Doesnt want homeless visible in his precious Laguna Beach!! As for the deaths I know many of those who died personally. Being homeless is bad enough but having corrupt law enforcement lining their pockets off of the poor is wrong and will be stopped. These deaths could have been avoided if the homeless could just rest their heads somewhere which is their constitutional right. How many times do the county and the cities have to be sued to do the right thing and what has already clearly been defined in the courts? The county and cities only care about their largest contributors who don’t care about humans at all. They only care about corporations that can fund their re election. In the mean time the tax payer is paying for legal fees which could have gone to building real homes!! If we don’t start standing up things will only get worse. It’s the end of the American empire. Wake up everyone!! Look at what happened to The Roman Empire !
“This judge has been useless.”
Wow.
I’ve always said that I’m actually a moderate in an environment that favors extremes — and this discussion shows why.
I’m more a fan of the Roman Republic than of the Roman Empire, and I feel the same way about the American versions of both.
If my vague recollection is correct, there WAS a temporary restraining order issued at one time. What you seem to think should be in place now is a permanent injunction. They are different not only in their first words, but also in the requirements for and effects of each. (I don’t know whether Plaintiffs even sought a permanent injunction — and I’m betting that you don’t know either.)
Carter is on much firmer footing — something that most judges very much want — for such injunctive relief now that the Ninth Circuit has spoken. How (and how well) he has handled this case was, I’m guessing, a factor in that case turning out the right way.
Your arguments that he won’t address disability issues and that he doesn’t want Laguna Beach to be included in any solution do demand refutation, even though I get the sense that they’re probably as unwarranted as the rest of the criticisms of the judge. (The criticisms of law enforcement have more justification; the criticisms of the political system in general are warranted but not really relevant to Judge Carter himself.)
If you know so many homeless who have died, I’m happy to see them named and the circumstances of their deaths examined so that responsibility (if any) can be assigned. That would seem to be both a proper remembrance and a serious contribution to this discussion — unlike the initial post.
Ahh if you were there at the BOS meetings and Anaheim city council and paying attention our group covered them all for the BOS with headstone shirts and the names of the dead.
I read them every few meetings in Anaheim are you paying attention – or tell me if I am not getting it right when i say here are the names of the dead in the last few months?
How do i make it more clear?
When I mentioned the dead at the Fullerton council the peoples faces changed as if the were really listening and genuinely shocked. Listening, seeming empathetic and doing something are 2 different things.
More die in the summer months 1 per day other wise it is 1 every 36 hours.
Suicide, Drugs, accidents on the streets and more.
Do you understand that a list of them here is much easier to reference, and longer-lasting, than serially going through every goddamned Anaheim Council and BOS video looking for your time up at the podium?
By all means, don’t post a list here if you think that what you do is sufficient.
Tim Houchen, Anaheim Housing Commissioner and sometime OJ blogger, confirms that 100 homeless deaths in the OC since the Riverbed Eviction sounds about right – could be a little more or a little less. Tim holds a memorial each year on the “Longest Night,” Dec. 21, with everyone’s name that can be confirmed. Last year there were 200 in one year. There’s no reason there wouldn’t have been at least 100 in the last six months, especially with all the stress and dislocation of the forced removal.
I can believe that 100 homeless people died in the past six months. But if so — how did they die? Did they die of exposure? Did they die of acute malnutrition? In other words, did they die of any cause that we can say would not have been present if they had been in temporary housing? If they died of inadequate medical care, let’s bear in mind that inadequate medical care affects (and contributes to the deaths of) people who live in homes as well.
If this were the East Coast and homeless were literally freezing to death on park benches, the case would be easy to make. But it’s not, they’re not, and it isn’t. There’s nothing to back up the figure that if, say, Judge Carter had struck down anti-camping ordinances and let people live in tents on public land over the past six months, any of those 100 people would not have died. Yes, increased stress may have led to some deaths — though it’s hard to pin down as a cause — but *as we know from stories that people tell of being unhappily in shelters* a live where services exist itself has major stresses. It also means exposure to disease and to opportunities for drug use (which may have contributed to those deaths), etc.
Since that is THE BASIS for this ridiculous calling Judge Carter an accessory to murder (or whatever term Finagle settled on), it’s a pretty damned important point. Homelessness — even if it’s in a riverbed or Civic Center tent city encampment — is by and large not a healthy way to live, and the people who are forced into homelessness are by and large not that healthy to begin with. So to say that if Judge Carter had waved his non-existent magic wand and caused XYZ to happen, these alleged 100 dead people would not have died is crackers.
This is, without exaggeration, Trump-level reasoning. Don’t ask readers to respect it — and you should think through how much of this supposed “tab of blood of the innocent” can be placed on Judge Carter — or, frankly, other OC policymakers. If OC is such a deadly place to be homeless, maybe it DOES make sense for people who lose their homes to look elsewhere. Yes, that’s terrible and harsh — but we’re talking about lives being at stake, right? Have 100 people died in the past six months in the Inland Empire?
Greg , I can’t believe what you are saying!!! People should move elsewhere??? Their support systems are here after living their whole lives here!!!
Why are housing prices going up??? Have you looked into that? This whole system is corrupt!!! They have families and friends here. Their doctors are here. And you expect them just to pick up and leave ?? You have no idea what you are talking about.
You may be some big hot shot lawyer who knows about the court system but you know nothing about what it takes for humans to survive. Nothing. I’m starting to think it’s a waste of my time trying to explain to you what humans need to survive. If you can’t see that people need to be able to stay where they grew up and have lived all of their lives, you are the one who is ignorant not me.
Oh and using your own terms, you are blissfully ignorant thinking that making people leave Orange County is the solution. You have no empathy and no heart and it’s obvious you have no experience in actually helping people survive and what their needs are. Wow! Let’s just move the homeless to Riverside???? Really?
It’s frightening that someone who has so much knowledge about the court system is completely ignorant about the very basic necessities for humans to survive. It’s because of people like you in our government at all levels that people are suffering.!!!! Mark my words Greg, people are waking up and realizing that there is something seriously wrong with our system. It’s people like you!
Angela, I am looking into moving elsewhere due to the cost of living in OC. I’m *almost certainly* going to retire elsewhere — without my “social support system.” Why do you think that the homeless should not have to take affordability into account? Well, I agree with you that *we should be required to do our part*, but as a very desirable part of the state we are ALWAYS going to have more people who want to live here than can afford to do so — both among those who can pay full rent, those who can pay partial rent, and those who can pay no rent. Your position is a caricature of a homeless rights position — and voters will completely reject it without looking foolish or knavish for doing so. Why are you being ridiculous?
Why are housing prices going up? How many times have I already said it here? Supply and demand. And here, our demand comes from many more quarters (China, Mexico, the Middle East) than is true of almost any other communities in the country. And our supply is limited by our not having enough roads and enough water, among other things, to sustain as large a population as would like to live here.
Skipping over the truly stupid personal attacks, I’m not saying that telling people to move is “the” solution to the problem. One could make an argument that taxing OC residents for to pay other places to house the homeless — which is the option I think that the judge should threaten OC with, because if there’s one thing OC hates worse than homeless, it’s taxes — but we’re not even doing THAT right now. Regardless, it should be obvious even to you that OC can’t reasonably be asked to supply free housing to EVERYONE who would like to live here, while other counties and states did nothing. So we’re not talking about WHETHER some homeless need to be turned away, but about HOW MANY. The judge’s calibration of what housing has to be created to the most recent housing census is a good example of how to do that fairly.
I’m going to leave up your hysterical bullshit personal attacks on me so that anyone so disposed can enjoy them and the rest of the readers can see why I’m saying this: the next time you do that to me, or to anyone else who complains about it, I’ll leave only the vowels intact.
Why here?
Come and listen.
Listen carefully or read carefully…
FOF is echoing all the advocates’ feelings including mine in exact and even redacted form. Only Fitzgerald can totally put the words together to explain how we feel. The language he would use would be more than appropriate and show our absolute exasperation in the judge’s court. He could use all Carlin’s 7 words to describe the judge, the BOS, the city councils and the situation as we see it except of course “tits” not sure how that would play in to it.
Wow, so you want to curse at Judge Carter — and that justifies your cursing at Judge Carter, even if you have no rational basis to curse at Judge Carter?
I’ll use one of those words, to get in the spirit — you don’t know *what the fuck* you’re talking about, and neither does anyone who agrees with you that your emotions justify your lashing out at the person who’s actually done the most to help. through the powers of government and who I wouldn’t blame at this moment if he just said “tits to it all, I’m handing it over to some judge who won’t give a tit.” That is, in its way, quite an accomplishment.
Right now, tits-for-brains, you’re up-helping, you’re de-helping, you’re counter-helping. Stop being Trump-like. It’s painful to watch.
Have you studied the Jones case and the Martin case???? If you have you will see this judge is impotent and refuses the follow previous case law!!!!!!!! I dare you to study those cases and come back here and tell me he is following them!!! He certainly is not!! There should have been a TRO a long time ago! And he can’t just keep on ignoring disability issues!!!! Get educated before you post your nonsense. Shelters are full what the hell is he waiting for???
OK, you need to learn some procedural law. Listen up.
What has happened in other TRIAL-LEVEL courts, of which District Courts (at the federal level) and Superior Courts (at the State of California level) are examples, IS NOT BINDING PRECEDENT upon other trial-level courts. You only talk about a judge “refusing to follow previous case law” when the rules are set down by an APPELLATE court directly above him in the line of authority (with some exceptions such as a federal court being required to adhere to the state appellate courts when deciding a claim based on STATE law in a federal appellate case.
So, until the Ninth Circuit JUST RECENTLY decided its appeal in Jones, there WAS no appellate law binding Judge Carter’s actions in this area. There was only what he had done on his own initiative in this matter (which is called “the law of the case”), and it was entirely conceivable that an appellate court could decide that he had gone too far and needed to be pulled back into line. By being so visible and active in this matter, pretty unusually for a judge, Carter has made himself a target by taking such a public interest in this critical topic — and therefore has had to be careful not to overstep his bounds.
As for a TRO: I don’t know whether one was sought, but I have a vague memory that if one was sought it was also granted. However, as I’ve explained before, TRO — as signified by the “T” in their name — are also TEMPORARY, and to last more than a matter of days they have to be turned into a permanent injunction. I don’t recall whether Plaintiffs ever sought a permanent injunction — they might well not have, because the standard required to get one is higher than that for a TRO — and it’s not something that the court would likely (if ever) done on its own.
YOU can’t keep ignoring that the court can only act within the scope of fashioning relief to address the case before it. What specific demand was before the court as regards disability issues? It would have been based on what the county (most likely, though perhaps in some respects cities as well) had to provide to the disabled. If there was nothing before the court, then Judge Carter had no RIGHT to demand it. That’s how courts work.
To be on the strongest footing possible — especially *prior to* the recent Ninth Circuit ruling in Jones — he has had to give cities every chance possible, which includes asking them multiple times, for their cooperation and compliance. He’s potentially going to take some steps that will bridge people’s rights — and arguable supersede state law regarding imposing de de facto taxation on cities. He clearly wants any such actions to hold up on appeal.
YOU don’t give a damn about that because — for all of your blather about “get educated” and the like — you have almost no idea how the system is supposed to work, and you think that Judge Carter is supposed to be some combination of Captain America and a Fairy Godmother, with effectively unlimited and untrammeled powers. No, he’s just a judge — and one that knows how he must proceed for his threatened actions not to ring hollow and eventually be undone. Your and Finagle’s undermining him so dramatically only serves to make matters worse.
Greg Greg Greg-
Somehow, I don’t recall seeing you in federal court during the countless hours I have spent there and, as such, I feel the need to finally chime in on what I can only interpret as ignorance on your part. You state: “We have no responsibility to defend kind-hearted but ignorant activists when they’re this wrong.” Your statement is so offensive in many ways.
For you to belittle our advocacy in any way is infuriating to me as I feel that you are speaking as a person sitting on the sidelines while we are in the trenches.
These “kind-hearted activists” that you are so critical of consist of a group of approximately 20 individuals that spent approximately 10,000 volunteer hours driving over 24,000 miles between March 1 and June 30, providing various necessary services to the homeless riverbed population – services that were neglected to be provided by the cities and the County of Orange. This continues to this day.
Our goal was simple and remains simple – keep people alive during this transition, and help them thrive in their new lives. We set up a network of homeless residents consisting of names, pertinent info related to their own lives, and which motel they were placed in. Our network was so comprehensive that service providers, such as City Net, as well as Cal Optima, were coming to us to try and locate their clients due to the county’s inability to adequately provide the required information.
These services include, but are not limited to, the provision of food, clothing, storage, and transportation.
When it comes to ensuring that the homeless population is, quite simply, alive, food became a topic of utmost concern. This need has been met through food acquisition, preparation, serving, group distribution, and direct delivery to those we come in contact with, or those who are referred to us as food insecure due to many individuals having lacked an ability to obtain food vouchers following the riverbed evictions. Some people are currently being evicted from facilities and are being placed in group homes that do not provide food. So, now, the “kind-hearted activists” are delivering food to group homes that are not providing food to residents. Should this not be the county’s job?
Additionally, clothing collection, distribution, laundry services, and repairs are offered at various activist events, or they are offered following direct contact with the homeless populations. When individual’s belongings are confiscated and “stored”, the odds are very high that the belongings, including clothing, blankets, tents, etc, will be “misplaced” or “lost”. The fact that the county and its included municipalities are not liable for the replacement of “lost” personal belongings is beyond comprehension.
“Kind-hearted activists” have managed to fill storage needs as homeless individuals have been shifted from place-to-place, often rendering them unable to abide by the strict hour requirements at most storage locations.
“Kind-hearted activists” have paid for motel rooms for people so they aren’t kicked to the streets while waiting for the county and service providers to coordinate a next-step for the individuals being evicted.
“Kind-hearted activists” have provided transportation to appointments for doctor’s visits, county services, DMV, shopping, moves, meetings, job interviews, places of employment, etc. Somehow, bus passes were not provided to much of the homeless population. Mileage, gas, and wear and tear on advocates’ cars remain quite high, and is at our expense. Should the county not have provided transportation to doctor’s appts, at the bare minimum, when they have moved people 20 miles from their doctors? What about the people who were placed in motels miles from their places of employment with no nearby public transportation? We picked up the slack.
“Kind-hearted activists” have provided advocacy work and preparation hours in the public sphere to educate, challenge and share experiences through presentations and participation with entities including various organizations, groups, funded service providers/non profits, Board of Supervisors, County officials and service providers, Anaheim City Council and departments, community districts and collaboratives, local/regional and national press and media, area legislators at State and Federal level. (Even invited to present to the UN Rapporteur in preparation of a Report on Extreme Poverty and Human Rights during, and after, their visit to Southern California.)
This does not even include the seminars, lectures, collaboratives, etc that we attend to keep abreast of the newest information so that we are able to provide educated services.
How about the certification program between Rancho Santiago College and a homeless shelter that was arranged by one of our core volunteers – a program designed to give people a leg up upon re-entering the workforce.
Imagine that you were removed from your family and community and dumped in a small town in the middle of TX with no money; you have been removed from your support group. You are mentally ill. You have no idea where to get food as you have been taken from your normal living situation. This is what happened during the evictions from the civic center and the riverbed. People at the riverbed, while in a less than ideal situation, knew where to go to get food and services. During the 30 days in the motel they were lucky if they received a 5 minute mental health assessment from a county trainee in a hallway or parking lot with no regard for HIPAA regulations. How effective do you think these were?
Finally, I would like to point out that if a person does not have mental illness when becoming homeless, then they will soon. The stress of surviving on the streets leads to PTSD, debilitating anxiety, or panic attacks, as well as the many mental health disorders that are controlled with regular medication which becomes almost impossible to manage when on the streets.
This all happened on Judge Carter’s watch so please understand if I am jaded regarding the process used. The frustration as I listen to Judge Carter repeatedly praise the cities and the county for their tremendous effort is overwhelming as we go about our daily service trying still to prevent people from falling thru the very wide cracks in the county process.
We do not ask for praise or acknowledgment for the services we provide; we do it so that, hopefully, one less person will perish on the streets while waiting for the often promised shelter bed or the holy grail of permanent supportive housing.
So the cities and county were praised once again on Friday- a Salvation Army shelter should be opened by December in Anaheim. Yea- I will believe it when I see it. Bill Taormina’s life rebuilding center will take 6 months- after it’s been approved by the city of Anaheim, and a 60 day notice given to the current tenant, and they have multiple community meetings. So maybe 2 years from now construction will begin… As far as moving the courtyard in Santa Ana – we will see – the community outcry will be heard across the state.
So Greg, with all your knowledge, please tell me what YOU plan to do in the meantime since you are so critical of what we are doing. I know what we will be doing- keeping people alive and fighting the criminalization of this population that simply has no where to go.
And please Greg, tell me what the Judge will be doing to keep people alive because trust me when I say that this issue is growing by the day. I don’t feel that Judge Carter understood the magnitude of the homeless issue when he took on the cases. I feel that the cities are hiding the results of the most recent City Net census which should have been released in August but have not – I feel that the numbers have grown so large that the cities are desperate to contain the results. Our document request for the census was denied, on “draft” grounds, 13 business days after it was submitted, despite CityNet executives having acknowledged the submission of a complete report, in a public meeting, to the City of Anaheim. I see the increases each week. And you should know- increases in street homeless population simply leads to increased deaths on the street. That is what we are working to prevent. If viewing the court’s work as lacking respect or knowledge of the magnitude of this legal, moral, and ethical dilemma makes “kind-hearted activists ignorant”, then so be it.
Thanks for a more rational reply than your husband’s, Jeannie.
What exactly do you think that your being in federal court *does*? Do you think that you’re pressuring the Judge? (I sure hope he doesn’t think that you are.) Why does it give you superior stature to comment on the legal aspects of what’s going on?
I’m sure that the statement you cite, and others, has been offensive. Your husband, and his like-minded doppelgangers, deserve to be offended in reply to their own offensive comments.
Am I “on the sidelines,” Jeannie? Go into our archives and take a look at what I’ve written and published, including during periods when Vern was absent, on the topic of homelessness in this blog. Look at the explanations I’ve offered to the public on the legal aspects of what’s going on. I consider that to be a contribution to the cause. Now, correcting the mad presumption –that Judge Carter has been able to do much more that he has without being slapped down and probably getting the case removed from his courtroom and given to a more traditionally minded judge who wouldn’t give you or the homeless the time of day — is going to be my contribution for a while.
[To be continued.]
Study Jones and Martin cases before you post your ignorant comments
You may notice, Jeannie, that I haven’t said a thing to disparage the work that you’ve done to serve the homeless where cities, counties, the state, the nation, and their respective courts have not done so. My criticism is about your lashing out at the judge because you appear to have no idea what he is doing and why. (Maybe you should have read my earlier stories on the topic.)
It’s not the judge’s province, though, to order food delivery to the homeless. (Well, arguably, it could be, in a case where that relief was sought, but so far as I know that issue is not before him — AND THAT DETERMINES WHAT HE CAN AND CANNOT DO. He’s not a god or an emperor; he just addresses what’s before him, though he’s willing to expand the scope of his actions — for example, by doing the fact-finding that Dave Zenger decries here — pretty much to their justifiable limits. Understanding that is crucial; NOT understanding that, as much as you’ve been in court and as close as you’ve been to this issue, is stunning. And it leads to totally wrong-headed diatribes such as what we see here.
What do you think that the case before Judge Carter actually involves? It involves the right for people to simply *be in a city*, both awake and asleep, when cities don’t want them there are do not attempt to find enough places for them. If you want to bring a case that demands that the cities and county have a legal — NOT moral, but LEGAL — responsibility to make sure that people are fed and provided sufficient health care and transportation, then by all means bring such a case. It would probably end up before Judge Carter as well — and of OC’s federal court judges no one is more likely to give such a claim a respectful hearing. Unfortunately, there may not be a basis for such a claim. (Maybe there is; I’m just not aware of one beyond access to emergency rooms. Oh yeah — one thing I’ve been doing that could help the homeless is working towards single-payer — have you?)
[More to come]
Previous case law shows TRO should be in place when shelters are full . study Jones and Martin before you lash out with your ignorance! Yes people have the right to be in a city. This is the UNited States of America! Humans still have rights, I don’t know where you are from? You sound like a dictator.
“Judge Carter’s watch” does not include all of the areas that you think it does or should, so blaming him for shirking is deeply misplaced. When he’s praising cities and the county for its efforts to provide safe housing, with supportive services where it can be managed, he’s giving them positive reinforcement for their efforts, which is pretty standard. He’s also willing to use both a carrot and a stick. If your complaint is that he’s not only using the stick, then you’re not only being unreasonable but you’re overlooking that it’s not actually his stick to wield, and that bashing people with it relentlessly and arbitrarily is a perfect way to get it taken away and given to a judge who won’t do that.
What the judge is doing to “keep people alive” (although it’s not clear that allowing people to camp in tents, etc., will really do that) is to continue the process of using the threat of nullifying camping ordinances to extract municipal cooperation in remedies to the low-cost housing crisis. That’s huge. He’s your best bet to avoid the “criminalization” and you and your husband and doppelgangers are pissing in his face. One other contribution I’m making is to tell you to cut it out.
I think that the likelihood is that “Judge Carter understood the magnitude of the homeless issue when he took on the cases” as well as any other judge would have — and maybe their true magnitude (which includes what *can* legally be done to force people to deal with it) is beyond anyone’s ability to comprehend — and that he certainly understands it as well as any other judge does now. You’re complaining so bitterly because YOU don’t understand the constraints on his authority. I’ve argued that he should consider fining cities and the county for failing to provide necessary serves as a means of extracting money from the citizenry without direct taxation — he can fine, but he cannot tax — and he may yet end up getting there. (He’ll need to be on VERY firm ground for such a decision to hold up, though.) And the biggest thing that he could do is not within his power at all (and may not be within anyone’s power), which is to expand the scope of those subject to his (or other judges’) remedies to include the entire Central District, the entire state, the entire Ninth Circuit, or beyond.
One sentimental argument made by housing activists is that any locality on which the homeless land is obligated to care for them and to pay for the costs of that care. I’m getting the sense that that is probably going to have to give way. THE VAST MAJORITY of people would rather live in Orange County than in Yuba County or in Idaho, and the way our economy keeps that from happening is to make the cost of housing here too expensive for them to do so. An implicit part of the argument made by homeless advocates is that homelessness has to be an exception to that. If we’re talking about imposing more than a fair share of burdens on some counties — and the “fair share” for OC would certainly be more than that for most places — then that demand will probably have to be relaxed. That’s the sort of issue that I’ll bet keeps Judge Carter up at night.
[Last reply to above comment upcoming]
The attorneys for the plaintiffs in the suit before Judge Carter should seek that CityNet census immediately. Failing that, one could bring a case under the California Public Records Act — but I’ve lost enough money fighting Anaheim on that for one decade, so you can try to find another lawyer to do that.
As for your final sentence:
No, that — even if the “lacking respect or knowledge” part were true, which I doubt is so — is not what makes you ignorant. Not understanding what the permissible role of the Judge and the court system generally is in this sort of case is what makes you ignorant. That’s fixable, though, so don’t “be it.”
Speaking of ignorance you should study Jones and Martin to see what the role of a judge should be. It’s not to praise the county. The TRO should have been in place a long time ago like in Los Angeles. Shelters are full in OC. TRO against anti-camping. People have the right to exist!!