Anna Gonzalez scans the crowd at what has become a tent city of homeless at the county’s Civic Center and says, “These are all my children.”

For Gonzalez, who is known as Mama Brizy and uses a walker as she visits waves of blue tarps, that may be true. “This is not a park. This is a home,” she says. “We are like a family.”

In two years, Gonzalez’s adopted family in downtown Santa Ana doubled to more than 500, and the annual number of people left homeless in Orange County jumped nearly 20 percent.

Local homeless experts, law enforcement, volunteers and homeless people point to two key causes for the explosion: Skyrocketing rents forced many out of apartments and into their cars. And Proposition 47, approved by voters in 2014, reduced prison populations by cutting penalties for certain inmates, but it also put them on the streets with little or no support.

“They come from the jail wearing ankle bracelets,” says Gonzalez, 66.

Karen Williams, president and chief executive of 211OC, a hotline for people seeking help for a variety of needs, says of Prop. 47’s impact, “I think a lot of people didn’t connect the dots.”

Unintended consequences

The spike in homeless at the Civic Center is a visible version of what is often hidden in parked cars, alleys, gullies and riverbeds throughout the county.

Williams’ organization, 211OC, is responsible for counting the homeless in Orange County. In 2013, an estimated 12,707 people were homeless at some point. Last year, that figure rose to 15,291.

Another count focuses on the homeless on any given night. In 2013, 1,678 people were without shelter. Last year, that number hit 2,201.

The total number of homeless, including those in shelters, on a typical night now hovers around 4,500.

Along with Prop. 47 and high rents, myriad other factors contribute to the rise in Orange County’s homeless population, with the cluster at the Civic Center the most concentrated.

Experts tick off lingering effects of the recession that hit the poorest of the poor, the opioid epidemic and even well-meaning volunteers who step up to make life on the street more comfortable but sometimes end up enabling the homeless.

Lawrence Haynes is executive director of Mercy House, a nonprofit that served more than 4,800 people last year. After a quarter century of work, Haynes is considered the dean of homelessness here. He lives in a working-class neighborhood in Costa Mesa and says that for most people, the phenomenon of being unable to afford basic shelter is difficult to understand.

“We look around at our quality of life, and we’re able to make ends meet,” Haynes says. “But for many people, a mortgage is hundreds of dollars less than rent on a two-bedroom apartment.”

Williams is more pointed: “Rents have increased, so a lot of people who were barely holding on now live in cars.”

Still, Prop. 47 is the big dog chasing homelessness. Williams says the nearby jail’s policy of releasing inmates in the dead of night makes matters worse, especially around the Civic Center. She says that when someone is released around midnight, it’s nearly impossible to find them shelter.

Although evidence remains anecdotal, Haynes says: “I do think a lot of early prison release does impact the Civic Center. My gut tells me it’s significant. There is a nexus between Prop. 47 and homelessness.”

Downtown’s draw

Santa Ana Police Officer C. Hawkins patrols tent city around the Civic Center in a black-and-white. She is a member of the HEART squad – Homeless Evaluation Assessment Response Team – and her mission goes far beyond what many think of as law enforcement.

“We’re doing what we can to try and assist people. We work with them so they can get to family,” Hawkins says. “They need mental health, housing and drug help.”

As Hawkins stops to chat under huge shade trees off Ross Street, a never-ending stream of “residents,” as they call themselves, strolls by. Some might think those in uniform and those in secondhand clothes would clash.

But interviews with homeless reveal more than detente. There’s appreciation. Hawkins calls it mutual respect.

A 55-year-old man named Joe who lives in a Toyota Corolla parked near Building 16, a government structure scheduled to be demolished, says he has been in and out of prisons and jails so many times on alcohol and narcotics charges that he’s lost count. He gestures toward Hawkins and her uniformed partner and says cops help.

Joe says he has stage 4 cirrhosis and doesn’t recall the term “Proposition 47.” But he does remember the change in laws that reduced many drug crimes from felonies to misdemeanor citations. “A lot of people coming out of prison are like me. The prison system is letting people out because we’re soft on drugs and alcohol.”

Hawkins says that when it’s cold and rainy, a nearby vacant bus terminal opens. But most of the time, hundreds of homeless roam the Civic Center area. She says there are flare-ups, “just like in any other community.”

Homeless people end up at the Civic Center from as far away as Fresno. One reason people stay is provisions. The area has become so popular with church groups that sometimes as many as six meals a day are offered.

“Word gets out about the Civic Center,” Hawkins says.

Stepping up

It’s 11:30 a.m. on a recent day, and a long line of homeless people outside the Orange County Assessor and Treasurer-Tax Collector building waits for lunch. A half-dozen women pile plastic foam plates with chicken mixed with macaroni and cheese, carrot salad, fruit salad, corn and beans, and a brownie. Today, the punch is red cherry.

Hundreds eat stretched out on clumps of grass and dirt, or they sit on small curbs or retreat to tents of blue plastic, brown blankets and small treasures.

A man walks through pushing an old cruiser bicycle with an even older boombox strapped to the back. Elton John’s “Your Song” floats through the air. “Don’t have much money, but boy if I did, I’d buy a big house where we both could live,” John sings.

Charles Coleman, a retired Marine and former Fullerton firefighter, sits on an upside-down white bucket and sifts through a plastic box filled with dozens of files. Each file has someone’s name. Many have mail inside.

Nearly every address is 316 Cypress Ave., Santa Ana. That’s the address for Isaiah House, a nonprofit run by Orange County Catholic Worker.

Coleman lifts out an envelope and hands it to Mama Brizy. Joe hovers but gets no mail on this day.

Coleman has volunteered since the 1990s and says this is not an easy place to live. Restrooms are few and far. Humans use concrete walls as bathrooms. Dogs poop where people sleep. Mental illness is rampant.

“It’s a NIMBY thing – not in my backyard,” he says of why many people push away homeless and they end up at the Civic Center.

Signs of hope

Haynes and Williams say they’ve seen a massive shift in attitudes toward homeless within the past year. “Attention being given to the homeless now,” Haynes says, “is at unprecedented levels.”

Haynes says politicians ranging from county supervisors to Newport Beach City Council members are sticking their necks out to support shelters. He cites the Board of Supervisor’s recent decision to build an emergency shelter in Anaheim as the most significant move.

That shelter will offer 30-day transitional housing and is expected to reduce the numbers at the Civic Center. “It’s a big deal to have politicians step up and do the right thing. There’s more cohesion, more collaboration to really solve this thing,” Haynes says. “I’m bullish on our future.”

For people who struggle, such as many of those at the Civic Center, Haynes says the best bet is usually something called permanent supportive housing. Addicts and the mentally ill, for example, are placed in supervised shelters.

Housing homeless is not only moral, it’s good business, advocates say.

“It is more expensive for society to walk past a homeless person and do nothing than it is to put them in an apartment,” Haynes says. “They clog up emergency rooms in hospitals. They require police response. They require fire department response. They require paramedic response.

“Property values go down. Home values go down. Businesses lose customers.”

Lingering impacts

Gonzalez says she’s been at the Civic Center for nine years. She looks around at the people she calls her “boys and girls” and says she lives in a place where the color of skin doesn’t matter. She says there are leaders for each race and they enforce the rule of respect.

She makes her way up a ramp to a flat area with a concrete overhang. This is her home, Building 16. She bends down to pet a friend’s Chihuahuas, Lola and Sugar.

With a massive Civic Center remodel in the works, the clock is ticking on how long her little patch of concrete will last.

Despite the recent progress, advocates say the homeless problem likely will worsen.

In its February report, 211OC states, “We expect an increase (in the) homeless population in 2017 count due to Prop. 47.”

Contact the writer: dwhiting@ocregister.com