Some of you might recall that, at the beginning of the year, I outlined what I saw as five big challenges for the City of Costa Mesa in 2025: funding additional rental assistance, adjusting the City’s homelessness policy to the Grant’s Pass decision, staunching the bleeding in the CMPD ranks, the looming threat of stepped-up Federal immigration enforcement, and local budget problems.

A few of these have cropped up already. Rental assistance got a fair amount of discussion last night when Council Member Jeff Pettis pulled the item relating to the reallocation of HOME funds, as I hoped someone would. Sadly, the long-term fate of that program remains unresolved. CMPD attrition seems to be ebbing based on internal reports that hiring is way up, though of course the impending departure of Police Chief Ron Lawrence complicates the picture a bit. And of course local budget problems have arisen. The city faces at least a $3.6 million budget shortfall in FY 2024-2025 — one that could grow by as much as $6.4 million if worst-case-scenario projections come to pass.

But one that has evaded direct discussion thus far is the impact of the Grant’s Pass decision on the City’s approach to homelessness. However, a recent story in the Voice of OC suggests that its time may be upon us shortly.

Laguna Beach: Similar approach to homelessness, ominous challenges

As many of you know, the City of Costa Mesa operates a publicly-funded homeless shelter located up on Airway Avenue, known as the Costa Mesa Bridge Shelter. Down the coast, the City of Laguna Beach also operates a municipal shelter off of Laguna Canyon Road. This shelter, known as the “Alternative Sleeping Location”, or ASL, features 35 beds and a variety of drop-in day services, such as showers, laundry, computer/internet access, and connection with community services.

The ASL has been in operation since 2009. Since that time it seems to have been operating smoothly. However, in the last six months, calls to the shelter have increased a whopping 54%.

And, sadly, the reason is Grant’s Pass. As Voice of OC notes, many cities responded to the Grant’s Pass decision by quickly passing or beefing up anti-camping ordinances that, prior to the ruling, they would have been barred from enforcing unless they provided adequate shelter opportunities.

This has caused many of homeless individuals to be displaced from cities that do not, and will not, provide alternatives for them. The result? They’re ending up in Laguna Beach. “Through interviews, we learned that many of these individuals were directed to our ASL by neighboring cities, rehabilitation centers, social service agencies,” ​​Laguna Beach Police Chief Jeff Calvert told the Voice of OC. “Word of our ASL services are clearly spreading.”

This added burden caused directly and indirectly from Grant’s Pass is now giving Laguna Beach budget heartburn. Like Costa Mesa, Laguna Beach is facing fiscal headwinds; just last year it contemplated raising taxes to boost revenue. While Laguna Beach City Manager Dave Kiff stopped short of recommending closing the ASL, he instead recommended cutting back the ASL’s daytime services, which reporting implies represents about 40% of the ASL’s total cost to the city.

Costa Mesa’s looming bridge shelter crisis

As bad as those cuts sound, I think the thing that should really worry Costa Mesa policymakers is the sentiment behind City Manager Kiff’s recommendations. “I don’t think our shelter’s resources need to be the region’s resources,” Kiff said while discussing the ASL program at a recent Laguna Beach City Council meeting. “I worry that we genuinely can’t afford to be anything but Laguna-focused in the long term. We’re not flush with cash. I’m genuinely concerned.”

What we may be potentially witnessing is the collapse of the previous Martin v. Boise order, which saw judges leveraging jurisdictions’ limited legal rights to enforce their anti-camping laws to force them to provide or support regional shelter services. Without Martin, which was thoroughly overruled by Grant’s Pass, providing for the homeless becomes a cruel game of hot potato, with each city incentivized to push homeless individuals into other jurisdictions rather than addressing their needs internally.

Of course, cities with dedicated homelessness infrastructure, like Laguna Beach and, to a much greater extent, Costa Mesa, are very much at risk of holding the potato when the music stops.

Similar to Laguna Beach’s situation, neighboring cities such as Newport Beach, Garden Grove and Santa Ana have all considered or passed more aggressive anti-camping ordinances. And to make matters worse, Irvine, a well-capitalized city with a quiet but persistent homelessness problem of its own, not only recently decided to shelve its plans to build another facility that could have taken some of the pressure off the Bridge Shelter: it also announced late last year that it will step up anti-camping enforcement.

Which means Costa Mesa needs to sprint, right now, to get to the bottom of the impact of Grant’s Pass on the Bridge Shelter’s operations. Data here will be key: is Costa Mesa seeing an influx of new applicants for our shelter, which I understand already runs at near-peak capacity on most days? Does that translate to increased costs? Do we have plans to interview these applicants to understand what might be causing them to come here?

Once we have our arms around the situation, the next step has to be to take a clear-eyed view of the Bridge Shelter’s finances. Can the City count on the long-term commitment of Newport Beach to continue renting beds that, legally speaking, it no longer “needs” in order to enforce its anti-camping laws? Is there any appetite for the County of Orange or a consortium of other OC cities to start shouldering more of the financial burden? I have a bad feeling about the answers to these questions. If those avenues don’t prove fruitful, I have serious concerns about the Bridge Shelter’s future.