Driving around this small city, I stopped at a red light at W. Civic Center Drive and N. Ross Street in downtown. In one corner is the concrete building that houses the Public Defender’s office, across the street is a bail bonds storefront, across from that is a private law firm with its name in big gold letters. Perpendicular to that is the city’s homeless encampment, from where hundreds of people live out tenuous lives steeped in poverty in the heart of one of the country’s richest counties.
Larisa Dinsmoor is a deputy public defender who specializes in homeless cases in addition to a full roster of criminal-defense ones. “I think society feels like people who are homeless just don’t want to do anything, that they’re actually taking steps to become homeless,” she told me when we sat in a breezy restaurant patio in downtown Santa Ana. “The majority of people become homeless [because] something tragic happens in their lives,” she said. Her clients come to her after they hear from a homeless friend, an outreach worker, or a judge who has ruled on a petty offense like harassing store customers, shoplifting, panhandling, unlawful camping, urinating in public, and parking tickets. Those are usually indicative of homelessness.
The Orange County Community Court, where Dinsmoor is assigned, can help clients get some of what they lost back, like social benefits, stable jobs, housing, even custody of their children. After completing the individualized program, a client’s outstanding fines and fees issued by county police are dismissed. This court model has gained momentum over the last two decades, with hundreds of them in operation throughout the country. Many include a homeless outreach court among more standard dockets like: drug, DWI, Veterans, juvenile, and mental health. Each court branch has tailored programs based on participants’ needs.
[For more of this story, written by Juleyka Lantigua-Williams, go to http://www.theatlantic.com/pol...s-not-enough/499175/]
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