Stop the abuse and neglect in OC emergency shelters!
TAKE ACTION NOW
People don't lose their right to live in dignity when they enter emergency shelters. But you'd never know it in Orange County, where a year- long investigation by the ACLU SoCal found an emergency shelter system that is dangerously unregulated and shelters that are downright abusive. As detailed in a newly released report, the investigation found:
- Disability-based discrimination and elder neglect.
- Sexual abuse by staff.
- Racial discrimination.
- Physical assaults and verbal abuse by staff.
- Exposure to rain and flooding.
- Filthy restrooms and raw sewage.
- No heat or air conditioning.
- Showers that are broken, leaking, or spout cold water.
- No soap for handwashing.
- Rodents, maggots and insects.
- Recurrent infestations of bed bugs and lice.
- Staff casually steal or discard residents’ belongings.
- A futile process for obtaining permanent housing.
- Arbitrary evictions.
- Retaliation against residents for exercising their constitutionally guaranteed right to speak out about inhumane conditions.
The ACLU SoCal report calls on the Orange County Board of Supervisors to immediately raise the standards of Orange County emergency shelters and create a system of oversight that will hold the both existing and new shelters accountable to those standards.
Stand with our neighbors experiencing homelessness to demand that the Board of Supervisors adopt the ACLU SoCal's recommendations, which, if followed, will protect the human and civil rights of people experiencing homelessness.
Take action now.
Message Recipients:
OC Board of Supervisors