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Orozco, Norma From: Chelsea Boyle < Sent: Friday, July 28, 2023 1:11 PM To: eComment Subject: Public comment city council meeting 8/1/23 Hello, My name is Chelsea and I am a concerned community member providing general public comment for the August 1, 2023 city council meeting. I oppose the inhumane criminalization within the proposed Intoxication Detention and Service Offering Policy. The policy is premised on false assumptions about the problem. The policy is premised on the false assumption that people are refusing housing and services and must be forced by our criminal legal system to get help. And while the Intoxication and Service Offering Policy does not overtly single out unhoused community members, comments by the Mayor and several city council members make clear that the target and underlying goal of this policy is to use law enforcement to forcibly clear public places of visibly unhoused and unsheltered neighbors. In fact, in a malicious and dangerous attempt to justify the policy, the Mayor engaged in unacceptable speech during discussion of agenda item #39 that otherized and denigrated unhoused residents and perpetuated several inflammatory, false, and broad brush stereotypes about them. The real Droblem is a dire shortage of housing and services DeODle need to survive and thrive. Santa Ana community members are not refusing housing and services. Santa Ana and California are experiencing a dire shortage of subsidized affordable housing and voluntary community based behavioral and mental health care. This is the real problem. Santa Ana's waiting list for housing choice vouchers is closed, as are the lists for all other housing authorities in Orange County. These lists remain closed for many years, then open for narrow windows of time, after which applicants wait years longer to receive subsidized affordable housing. 1