U.S. judge leads lawyers, others on trip to homeless camp

ANAHEIM — Led by a federal judge, an entourage of three dozen lawyers, activists, county workers and officials set out at dawn Wednesday down a California trail to assess what it would take to move hundreds of homeless people camped along a riverbed.

U.S. District Judge David O. Carter boldly ordered the outing in a case in Orange County being watched by homeless advocates along the West Coast and elsewhere grappling with a rise in homelessness caused in part by soaring housing costs, rock-bottom vacancy rates and a roaring economy.

Homeless advocates sued and sought protection from the court when they heard authorities were going to start citing or arresting people who refused to budge from the twomile (3.2 kilometer) long encampment.

Carter’s ruling will only cover people living in the tents near the stadium where the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim play, but homeless advocates elsewhere might look to the case to make similar claims, experts said.

During the more than four-hour tour, Carter spoke with officials about how to remove syringes littering the ground, the lack of access to bathrooms for tent-dwellers, and who is and isn’t willing to move to motel rooms the county will offer for 30 days when the encampment is shut down on Tuesday.

“This is going to move much more quickly than anybody suspected,” Carter told the lawyers.

The judge stopped frequently on the brisk walk to snap cellphone photos of trash and to pick up discarded water bottles,

The visit came a day after Carter told local government officials they must come up with a plan to move the homeless people from the riverbed before shutting down the encampment, which grew in recent years into a stream of tents and tarps on a bike trail along the Santa Ana River.