Commentary: City history shows legal action is necessary to compel Laguna to do right by the homeless

Daily Pilot columnist David Hansen extolled the virtues of Laguna Beach’s homeless shelter while condemning the ACLU of Southern California and its lawsuit against the city in his column of July 10 (“ACLU wins at law but loses at diplomacy.”)

ACLU SoCal and its legal allies filed the suit in 2015 because people with disabilities experiencing homelessness could not access the shelter or its transportation system and were harmed by the actions of the city’s police department. Hansen found the suit to be a “bitter irony” given that the city, unlike others nearby, had “benevolently” opened the shelter.

But there was a fact Hansen left out: ACLU SoCal’s previous lawsuit is what caused the city to build a shelter in the first place.

In 2008, ACLU SoCal sued the city for its inhumane and unconstitutional policy of ticketing individuals for sleeping outside when they had no other place to go. Laguna Beach, one of the wealthiest enclaves in the country, essentially made it illegal to be homeless.

The lawsuit was settled in 2009, with Laguna Beach agreeing to repeal its anti-sleeping ordinance until it provided a legal place for people to sleep. In response, the city quickly built a shelter — and just as quickly reinstated the ordinance.

But neither donations by community members nor the existence of a shelter make the city’s homelessness program accessible to those with physical and mental disabilities. This is not a trivial issue. Studies commissioned by Laguna Beach estimate that approximately 80% of people experiencing homelessness in the area have disabilities.

Yet, the shelter’s crowded, noisy conditions are intolerable for many of these people, and staff expel them for nonviolent behaviors that are not criminal but symptomatic of their deteriorating physical and mental health.

This inaccessibility deprives much of the population the city aims to assist of potentially life-saving shelter from the elements. It also exposes them — once again — to legal troubles.

Police are again issuing citations, and those who try to access the shelter but can’t because of their disabilities are not spared, as are those who do not get a space in the shelter, which does not have enough space for people who are homeless in Laguna Beach on most nights.

The current lawsuit is scheduled to go to trial later this year, but the judge has already ruled that the shelter’s transportation system violates the Americans with Disabilities Act and the Rehabilitation Act. Though Hansen alleges that this result could have been achieved without a lawsuit, the city’s history does not indicate a willingness to act for the benefit of its homeless population without the threat of the law.

Hansen warns that ACLU lawsuits could result in the city “just throwing up its hands and saying forget it, we’ve tried hard and look where it’s gotten us. Ship them to Santa Ana.”

Perhaps one day, cities like Laguna Beach will treat their homeless residents as they do the rest of their constituents: like human beings possessing basic, fundamental rights rather than cattle to be “shipped” to other cities. Until then, ACLU SoCal will be there to defend those rights.

PETER J. ELIASBERG is chief counsel of the ACLU Foundation of Southern California.