Aid for ‘Motel Homeless’

They’re known as the motel homeless, men and women, sometimes with children, living on the edge in Orange County, having a roof overhead when they’re lucky, but not much more than bare shelter.

This week the Board of Supervisors recommended hiring a coordinator of homeless programs, a job that will include providing assistance to the urban nomads.

It’s a position that deserves to be reestablished, three years after it was eliminated because of the county’s bankruptcy. Despite its affluence, Orange County has an estimated 12,000 homeless, who sleep beneath freeway overpasses, in motels or in temporary shelters. For too long the county has done too little to provide permanent, adequate housing for those at the lower end of the economic scale.

Two years ago, the federal Housing and Urban Development Department awarded the county a much-needed $7.2-million grant, payable over three years, to provide shelter for the homeless. But the county’s application for more funds last year was turned down. This year’s application represents a coordinated effort with cities and community and religious organizations helping the homeless. Washington has not yet announced whether the application was successful.

The supervisors’ recommendation for a homeless-programs coordinator, to be approved next month if details are worked out, followed a report on the motel homeless from the Social Services Agency, requested by Supervisor Todd Spitzer. The report should not have surprised anyone. Those living in the motels are poor, unable to find the security deposits and month’s rent required upfront to move into an apartment or other permanent housing. Nor are the motels Holiday Inns or similar establishments; most are run-down buildings, affordable to families earning $20,000 a year or less. There are no cooking facilities. Families are crammed into one room.

County officials said they had not determined how many of those counted as homeless live in motels, rather than shelters or elsewhere. About 14,000 families in Orange County do receive subsidies for permanent housing. But the depth of the affordable housing problem can be seen by the number on the waiting list for the subsidies: 15,000. And three of the county’s four housing agencies stopped taking applications two years ago because their lists were so full.

The county and organizations helping the homeless need to tell those in the motels where to find jobs, get flu inoculations and obtain food. Hunger and domestic violence are perennial problems for the motel homeless. A coordinator, backed by support from the county and cities, can help alleviate those problems.