Orange County Supervisors are struggling with how to move people out of their shelters and into housing amid concerns that many homeless residents are spending years in what’s meant to be a short term stay.
But the fault doesn’t lie on homeless people or the shelters operators according to county supervisors, but on the county’s lack of affordable housing.
The concerns around the shelters came up as supervisors approved over $45 million in new contracts for the nonprofit People Assisting the Homeless to run both county shelters, managing over 600 shelter beds.
[Read: Are OC Supervisors Setting Unrealistic Goals on New Homeless Shelter Operator?]
County leaders haven’t yet released the data on their 2026 count of homeless people in shelters and on the streets, but their last count in 2024 found that while over 3,000 homeless people are in various shelters throughout the county, over 4,000 others still are on the streets.
They’ve also been challenged by the Orange County Grand Jury to rethink their approach to homelessness, noting that a billion dollars later, the county is in largely the same position.
[Read: Grand Jury: Orange County Again Fails to Curb Homelessness]
While supervisors unanimously approved the contract for PATH to run both shelters, several brought up complaints over how long people were stuck in the shelters for, noting that the one area the contractor repeatedly failed at was to get people to exit into permanent housing.
“You’re operating as a long term transitional shelter,” said Supervisor Janet Nguyen. “It’s not emergency shelter anymore – it’s now a one year, two year, transitional housing.”
Doug Becht, director of the county’s Office of Care Coordination, acknowledged people are staying in shelters longer, noting it’s largely due to a lack of affordable housing that’s available.
“The one they’re challenged with is the percentage going into housing when they exit,” Becht said. “That one is difficult because housing is largely dictated by the market and the operator doesn’t have as great of an impact on the market as we’d like them to.”
Instead, Becht noted that PATH’s work has largely been setting homeless people up so that when spots open at an affordable housing development, they can quickly apply and get accepted.
Supervisor Vicente Sarmiento again suggested the county should look at building smaller housing units to serve as an option to get people out of shelters while they wait for larger, more permanent options.
“The front door keeps getting full and the back door is very limited,” Sarmiento said. “The metrics are fine given what the limitations are.”
Supervisor Doug Chaffee also highlighted the county’s pilot programs for homeless prevention as a place to focus their future efforts.
Noah Biesiada is a Voice of OC reporter. Contact him at nbiesiada@voiceofoc.org.
