Sweeps, Citations, and Jail Bookings. Arrests Aren't a Plan. Relationships Are.

Recently, the City of Orange arrested 69 people while clearing homeless camps near Hart Park. It's part of a much larger pattern across Orange County: since the Supreme Court's Grants Pass v. Johnson ruling cleared the way for cities to enforce anti-camping laws, jurisdictions from Anaheim to Santa Ana have leaned hard into sweeps, citations, and jail bookings. Transient bookings into county jails are up more than 40% since 2022. Millions of dollars are going toward cleanup, enforcement, and park restoration.

What's harder to find in these headlines is a plan for what happens to the person after the handcuffs come off, the citation is issued, or the tent is gone. A sweep can clear a sidewalk. It cannot clear a path forward.

That's the gap Grandma's House of Hope exists to fill.

Enforcement Ends an Encampment. It Doesn't End Homelessness.

We understand why cities feel pressure to act. Public parks, waterways, and neighborhoods matter, and residents deserve to use them. But when the response to homelessness is arrest first and ask questions later, we lose sight of something our work has taught us every single day: people don't exit homelessness because they were told to. They exit because someone stayed with them long enough to help them rebuild.

An arrest doesn't undo the circumstances that led someone to a tent in the first place: lost income, a broken support system, a health crisis, a past that follows them. Clearing an encampment moves the crisis. It doesn't solve it.

What We Do Instead

Grandma's House of Hope was built on a different premise: that the real path out of homelessness is relationship, not just a roof.

Our residential programs provide safe, stable housing for people rebuilding their lives, paired with case management, mentorship, and connections to employment support through partners like HireOC. But none of that works in isolation. What makes the difference is sustained human connection: staff and mentors who show up consistently, an AfterCare program that stays engaged long after move-in day, and an Alumni Association that keeps former residents connected to a community that believes in them.

This is what a real alternative to the sweep-and-cite cycle looks like. Not just a bed. A relationship someone can lean on when things get hard again.

Being Part of the Solution

We don't have the power to write county policy or settle federal lawsuits. What we can do, every day, is offer the thing enforcement can't provide: a place to belong, and people committed to walking alongside our residents as they rebuild.

As Orange County debates how hard to enforce and how much to spend on cleanup, we'll keep doing the quieter, slower work of helping people not need a tent, a citation, or a jail cell in the first place. That's how we measure our part in solving this crisis: not in arrests avoided, but in lives rebuilt.

Grandma's House of Hope provides transitional housing and residential support across Orange County. Learn more about our programs and how you can support this work at grandmashouseofhope.org.