COMMENTARY ON HOMELESSNESS : Supervisors Are Continuing to Sidestep Their Responsibilities : In appointing an advisory committee, the board has left some of the most important players off the team.

The Orange County Board of Supervisors, perhaps goaded by publicity surrounding recent grand jury recommendations concerning homelessness, has responded by adroitly sidestepping full implementation, while still giving lip service to concerns of the past two juries.

Instead of the recommended “blue ribbon commission” made up of county, city, nonprofit and business sector representatives, the supervisors chose to limit their appointees to a Homeless Issues Advisory Committee to county agency heads who have already been providing input. Once again, important players have been left out of the creative part of the process. The appointment of Maria Mendoza as the homeless coordinator also falls short of providing new, independent and creative leadership meant to challenge and motivate agency heads and stimulate participation by cities and nonprofit groups.

The problem is that Mendoza, while good at what she does, is more a team player than an independent advocate and has already stated that she has to make sure that she represents the thinking of the board. This would seem to preclude any rocking of the boat. How many new ideas and strategies will be generated if no members are added to the tired old team?

The grand jury recommended a full-time advocate who would be able to influence policy and carefully evaluate all recommendations, not someone whose job survival is subject to the whims of the board. As the chief administrative office liaison five years ago, Mendoza wasn’t able to provide the needed leadership. I hope she will be able to now.

These concerns are based on my experience during the ‘80s working with the homeless, various supervisors and many heads of agencies. When I read the headline, “Grand Jury Faults Local Leaders Over Homelessness” (May 31), it sounded familiar. The jury’s recommendations reflected the same concerns homeless advocates had a decade ago. It was in the early ‘80s, when Jean Aldrich convened a group of local activists to look at the problems associated with homelessness and develop some creative solutions. She was told by many participants then that there simply wasn’t a problem. Ten years and countless volunteer efforts later, the grand jury states, there are “many who still do not see the problem or wish to ignore it.”

Supervisor Thomas F. Riley, responding to questions about the report, said: “It merits consideration, but I’m not going to accept any guilt on the part of the Board of Supervisors.” If not the supervisors, who should accept responsibility?

The jury’s recommendation to appoint a coordinator acknowledges that there is a homeless problem and pinpoints responsibility. The jurors recommended that the appointee be able to influence policy and work effectively with recommendations. Working to solve these problems now could prevent much higher tax-dollar expenditures in the future.

Diseases that start on the streets spread, requiring expanded indigent medical care. Ignoring the problem, or not involving the groups whose cooperation is critical, means that ever-increasing mental facilities for those not in hospitals and roaming the streets would need to be provided. Minimum-wage-earning couples who pay taxes and who are homeless need to be housed. It is an overwhelming problem that is not going to go away. Prompt steps must be taken before costs get totally out of hand. But the supervisors’ actions have forestalled a cooperative partnership by excluding the very people who need to be included in the process.

The supervisors are, for the most part, well meaning and concerned, although seriously hampered by budget restrictions. But the fact is that they respond most readily to voter concerns, and their constituents have not yet made homelessness a priority.

However, some progress has been made during the past decade. The YWCA Hotel for Women, conceived during a meeting of the Coalition for the Homeless, was built, thanks in great part, to the support of Supervisor Riley. The Orange Coast Interfaith Shelter has grown and was recently able to double the number of families housed in its facilities. Irvine has a housing program. Huntington Beach is building single-room-occupancy housing, and the Community Housing Corp. has developed a successful model for building low-cost housing. As a catalyst for further progress, the Homeless Issues Task Force has collected a wealth of information on available resources, and has developed a five-year plan for attacking some of the problems.

But so far, each group has had to compete for scarce dollars rather than plan together for what is best for the community. Many cities are doing nothing and are even sitting on Community Housing Development funds, which will now be used to pay the coordinator a $71,000 salary. The cities need encouragement and leadership from the supervisors to bring about acceptance of fair-share accountability. Without dynamic leadership, planning and the assumption of responsibility, little will get done.

The argument that this is a state or national problem is a dodge. The grand jury points out that other communities are successfully working with coordinators, and they report that progress is being made. Hopefully, our county, by taking these first steps, will follow suit. Things can and should be done on the local level, and the grand jury’s recommendations appear to be well thought out and achievable. Let your supervisors know that you want them to take the lead in providing an environment where it is not them against us, but all of us working together for solutions.

In 1985, the Orange County Coalition inventoried low-cost housing stock and mental-health resources, presenting their findings to the Board of Supervisors. Every effort was made by the supervisors to discredit the findings, and they assured coalition members that the county was developing its own report so that more credible, county-generated information would be forthcoming. Assurances were given that a coordinated plan would evolve to integrate all the collective efforts of the public and private sector. Five years later, it still hasn’t happened.

A coordinator can bring available data together, but first, homelessness must be made a priority by the board. In a recent poll, the community made it a top concern, second only to crime. This concern needs to be translated into action, because the longer we delay, the worse the problems become.

We need to know which programs are working and which are not, from a viewpoint unfettered by political considerations. We need to understand what underlies homelessness and what needs to be changed. The county could then adapt successful models to meet these needs and, in the process, become a role model for cities.

In order to achieve this, the coordinator-advocate must be free to move from the role of colleague and team player to one of challenger and motivator.

What the county doesn’t need is another rubber-stamping, so-called “blue ribbon commission” made up of agency heads. This type of commission is simply another way to defuse responsibility and delay decisions.

Instead, why not utilize the existing expertise in the county? Include--not exclude--representatives from the cities and nonprofit groups. A first step is to seriously commit to looking for viable solutions. Years ago, an interagency task force brainstorming session looked at creative approaches to providing affordable housing.

All agencies were represented except for the county housing authority and General Services Administration (keepers of real estate information), both of whose input was sorely needed. There was no follow-up leadership, and the meeting turned out to be a waste of everyone’s time. Some progress has been made. The housing authority General Services Administration have been included as a part of this new committee.

Mendoza represented the chief administrative office at that earlier meeting but did not take a leadership role. But her designated function at that time was as an inside team player, representing the board.

Hopefully, now she will ask the hard questions, provide leadership and inspiration and serve as a lightning rod who can make things happen.