Suit Would Bar City From Trashing Goods of Homeless

Santa Ana is violating its own law by destroying homeless people’s unattended belongings, the American Civil Liberties Union and the Legal Aid Society of Orange County charged in a suit filed Tuesday.

The Superior Court suit seeks a temporary restraining order that would bar city maintenance crews from throwing away bedrolls and other belongings stashed in the bushes at the Civic Center and in city parks.

A law passed in 1952 requires the city to store all found property worth more than $10 for at least three months. City officials contend that the law does not apply to homeless people’s belongings because they are not worth $10.

“So far as we know, everything that has been picked up in the parks is worthless,” City Atty. Ed Cooper said. “If they were of any value, they would be taken to the Police Department.”

Cooper, however, admitted that it might be difficult for maintenance workers to know the value of the belongings they find in the bushes.

“I think the problem here is the determination of what is property and what is not property, and what’s trash and what’s not trash,” he said. “So it’s a very difficult issue.”

But Legal Aid director Robert Cohen said park workers throw out things without going through them or assessing their value, “which is not in compliance with the law and violates our clients’ rights to property.”

The lawsuit charges that city workers have discarded valuable things, “including identification, medication, food, bedding and clothing. . . .”

“Defendants’ actual and threatened confiscation and destruction of personal property without notice, warning or hearing and without just compensation violates the constitutional right to due process . . . ,” the complaint said.

City Manager David N. Ream, who along with Mayor Dan Young and Parks Director Allen Doby, is a defendant in the suit, said the city has made every effort to deal with the ACLU’s objections to the city’s new policy, implemented in May.

“We’re disappointed that the ACLU feels the need to sue,” he said. “They’ve continually turned down our offers to personally inspect our cleanup efforts and also to assist them in filing claims on behalf of anyone with a legitimate concern for loss of property.”

The suit was brought on behalf of two homeless men, Pat Ford, 45, and John Close, 49, as well as two Santa Ana residents, Carol Collins and Richard Petherbridge, who are protesting what they claim is illegal use of their tax money by the city.

Ford, who said he lost 2 pounds of beef stew, 2 pounds of peanut butter, bread, eggs, clothing and blankets on Aug. 18, said “it’s not so much what it’s worth; it’s to get by on.”

A judge is expected to reach a decision and rule today on the request for a temporary restraining order.