The Los Alamitos City Council expressed satisfaction with the direction of an emerging transient policy after receiving an in-depth briefing from the city’s police department.
“It is referred to as a bridge program,” said Sgt. Chris Lee, who is the city homeless liaison officer told the council during a lengthy briefing at their most recent meeting.
The new approach bridges “traditional law enforcement actions of citations and arrests” and the work of social organizations, which could be governmental mental health agencies and other nonprofits.
Moreover, Lee said the approach has been sanctioned by federal Judge David Carter, who has found himself at the center of major rulings involving the homeless and the Catholic workers lawsuit.
“Instead of an arrest first mentality,” said Lee, officers first educate themselves about potential remedies and services for transients and homeless people and then attempt to provide services to them.
He said habitual transients are those who have remained in the area for a year or more, saying there were between four and six such transients in Los Alamitos.
Many homeless requiring medical services, come into the city from the riverbed when they need medical attention, said Lee, saying the location of Los Al Medical Center prompts many “walk-ins.”
Lee said officers get to know them and rather than arrest them, they offer services based on what they find out from the transients.
Lee said he planned to work with the Los Al Chamber of Commerce so that his unit can better coordinate with local businesses.
“We’re going to continue to expand the training,” said Lee, “including crisis intervention training and some environmental design type of training where we can go out at work with business owners property owners and take a look at the way their properties are set up and maybe make some suggestions.”
In addition, Lee said they are developing a document for business to sign in advance that will allow police to make arrests when transients refuse to leave the premises.
Currently, he said, “if a business wants a person arrested for trespassing, a representative of that business has to be present and essentially affect a private person’s arrest. We’re probably not going to find a business owner in their business at 2:00 o’clock in the morning.”
However, said Lee “if the business owner or property owners signs a letter agreeing to support prosecution and essentially asking the Los Alamitos Police Department to affect an arrest (they are) basically authorizing us to act on their behalf.”
That program is eventually going to be rolled out here, hopefully with the cooperation of the Chamber of Commerce, said Lee.
Even then, said Lee, providing for the needs of transients would still take precedent. “We realize that we are not going to be able to arrest our way out of a transient situation,” he concluded.
