EDITORIAL: Homeless plan is a good start

Laguna Beach’s Homeless Task Force has done a magnificent job of confronting the issue of how to better handle the city’s street-dwellers.

As with many laid-back resort communities, Laguna Beach has always had its share of homeless, some of them those colorful characters with well-known nicknames who become fixtures on the street and in the city jail’s “drunk tank.”

As housing costs have gone “through the roof,” more and more people at the bottom of the economic ladder for many reasons find themselves unable to pay for housing.

Add to these economic refugees the mentally ill who have been “set free” by the policy changes of the 1970s that closed many mental institutions and made it difficult to lock up someone with a mental illness against their will — yet failed to provide backup services — and it’s easy to see why there are so many on the streets of Los Angeles and other large cities.

Even tiny Laguna has seen an influx of homeless and a change in the type of homeless.

Last year, a disturbing increase in the number of women seeking shelter at local churches made many in town sit up and take notice.

Led by newly elected Councilman Kelly Boyd, who owns a downtown tavern and therefore copes with street-dwellers every day, the City Council appointed a task force to look into the problem and come up with some solutions.

The task force did just that, and the council unanimously signed on to all 14 recommendations — including the task force’s overall “humane” approach of helping the homeless off the streets instead of driving them away by force.

One of the more surprising aspects of the report was the inference that the way police handle homeless people should change from one of a punitive, law-enforcement response to one of helping.

The Homeless Court has also been embraced as a “carrot-and-stick” approach to handling people who collect citations for various infractions.

The police department has already designated a special “homeless” officer, who is now being trained in handling homeless people and their special needs.

It is also very important that Laguna Beach involve adjacent cities early in the planning process and lobby for them to bear their fair share of the burden.

As Laguna moves forward in this venture, it does not want to be designated as the “homeless drop-off center” for other cities.