Orange County Supervisor Shawn Nelson has proposed putting temporary homeless shelters on county-owned land in Irvine, Huntington Beach and Santa Ana – and he wants the first one to open within 30 days.

Under Nelson’s proposal, which was announced at Tuesday’s board meeting, the county would erect a large, temporary, 200-person, tent-like structure on each of those properties, adding 600 total beds for the homeless and installing portable bathrooms and showers on the land as well. The next step will be for County CEO Frank Kim to evaluate the sites and report to the board at its May 23 meeting.

In recent months, scores of homeless people and advocates have spoken at board meetings, complaining that homeless people living along the Santa Ana River have no access to toilets, showers, clean water or a reliable food source. Nelson plans aims to furnish a location that supplies access to those basic amenities. He said he approached the plan wanting something “similar to what you would see if there were an emergency today and the Red Cross had to set up facilities.

“The whole purpose is to keep it simple and as inexpensive as possible so we can get something accomplished while were trying to wrestle with the complexities of these issues,” Nelson said. “It’s not a perfect alternative. We know that. But we’re trying to give people a place to go, so that the river isn’t all they’ve got.”

Five weeks ago, Nelson directed staff to identify county land where it could open a shelter.

One of the proposed sites is on 100 acres of county-owned land just south of the Great Park, along Marine Way. Another is on property adjacent to the Orange County Registrar of Voters building in Santa Ana, at 1320 S. Grand Ave. And a third is southeast of Talbert Park in Huntington Beach, at 18111 Gothard St.

In his speech at the meeting Tuesday, May 9, Nelson mentioned “constant litigation” from the American Civil Liberties Union and other groups about the county’s interactions with the homeless people who live along the riverbed. The county was sued twice in February when it forced a large homeless encampment to relocate from the river’s east bank to its west side, which the county said it needed to do so it could stockpile boulders and sand for flood control purposes.

Nelson said the homeless people who live at the riverbed won’t have the option to remain there once the county opens its temporary shelters.

“The whole idea is that the river does not work, but currently we don’t have good alternatives,” Nelson said. “Once we have enough space it’s not going to be an option … And they can go (to the shelters) or get out of Orange County.”

Nelson said the county would provide transportation to relocate homeless people. He said it was unclear on how the county would house people’s pets. And he said the new shelters might provide basic support services, similar to those provided at its Santa Ana shelter, such as access to health care and social services workers.

Paul Leon, founder and president of the Illumination Foundation, a nonprofit that helps the county’s homeless, said the emergency shelters could be a temporary solution but wouldn’t help in the long-term. He worried that people forced out of the riverbed wouldn’t go to the county’s new temporary shelters and would instead disperse into surrounding cities. He also urged the county to pursue building permanent housing for the homeless.

“I know it would probably look better getting them out of the riverbed, but it would just create the same problem,” Leon said.

Nelson said his short-term plan would not prevent the county from formulating long-term solutions and that he didn’t want to wait for a permanent fix before addressing the issue. He also said he would be open to moving his proposed sites to other locations if someone has a better idea.

“The perfect has been getting in the way of the good in this discussion,” Nelson said.

Supervisor Todd Spitzer said he thought Nelson should have proposed a site in his own district, where the riverbed encampment is located, rather than moving the homeless elsewhere in the county. He also called Nelson’s proposal to use the Great Park-adjacent property “retribution” and a “poke in the eye to Irvine, Five Points and the Irvine Co.” for opposing the county’s potentially lucrative commercial and residential project on that land.

Nelson replied that he looked only at county-owned land so that the board could act quickly and that the county doesn’t own a site in the 4th District. And he said the Irvine site was proposed because the land is flat and there are few neighbors.

Oakland recently agreed to create a sanctioned space for homeless tents, but the city’s proposal required people to bring their own shelter rather than sleep under one giant tent. Government-sanctioned homeless campgrounds have also been proposed in Salt Lake City and Hawaii.

Orange County opened its first two year-round shelters in the last year, including an emergency shelter at a former bus terminal in Santa Ana and a full-service shelter in Anaheim aimed at quickly finding people permanent housing.

A 2015 count found there were nearly 4,500 homeless people in the county. The figures for the county’s 2017 count have not yet been made public.