LAGUNA NIGUEL, CA — It's been almost 30 days since the homeless were ousted from their temporary shanty town along the Santa Ana riverbed. That's 3o days of motel and meal vouchers gone through, and still no closer to a permanent housing solution. However, an unlikely solution offered by law clerks might be the answer. Now the OC Supes are busy working out a solution that will serve their communities without putting a blight on three Orange County cities.

On Monday, the Orange County Supervisors agreed to spend a share of that earmarked money for providing beds and tents for temporary homeless shelters in Irvine, Huntington Beach and Laguna Niguel. This $70.5 million was part of a larger sum originally designated for aiding the mentally ill. In a special hearing convened Saturday by U.S. District Judge David O. Carter, county officials and homeless advocates were pressured come up with another solution toward a more permanent relocation of hundreds of transients from the Santa Ana riverbed in Anaheim. The supervisors called a special meeting Monday morning and then walked over to Carter's courtroom to update him before returning to the county hall to vote on the $70.5 million plan to build a new facility or renovate existing facilities for mentally ill transients.

The money was available to the county and left unspent because officials did not realize they could use it to help the transients on the riverbed. Carter had earlier accused county officials of "chipmunking" money from federal and state grants. Supervisor Todd Spitzer said he was "embarrassed" that Carter's law clerks showed that the county the money could be used on the mentally ill transients.

"I'm embarrassed because I've been led to believe until today that we were doing everything in our power to money on the streets," Spitzer said. "Now we find out today, and it was confirmed, that we have $185 million from 2016-17 that we didn't spend. Every one of these board members had the same information I had, that up until today we didn't know those dollars were available." If the county had spent those available funds, "we wouldn't be here today, so now we're saying we're going to put up tents," Spitzer said.

The board also approved a plan to erect tents in Irvine, Huntington Beach and Laguna Niguel to collectively house up to 400 people. The tents are a backup plan in case the county does not have enough beds at its existing shelters.

If there is overflow, the transients would be taken to Irvine, which would have a capacity of 200, and then if that facility is filled, officials will take transients to Huntington Beach and then Laguna Niguel, which would have a capacity of 100.

Board of Supervisors Chairman Andrew Do told Carter on Monday that the county has also come up with a plan to provide beds for couples. Attorneys for the homeless who sued the county to stop its plan to move transients off the riverbed had provided multiple examples of couples who needed to stay together and did not wish to be separated as they were sheltered. Do also told Carter he was moved by news of a family of four dying in a van they were sleeping in last week in Garden Grove. He pledged to have staff "do more outreach to advise people living in their cars" of what services are available.