Orange County is now ‘Rehab Rivera’

Don Wagner leads the Orange County Board of Supervisors in unanimously voting to regulate group housing.

Don Wagner, Orange County Board Supervisor, pushes to regulate group housing. (Wikicommons)

It is no surprise that Orange County has a problem with housing the homeless. Now, after the Orange County board of supervisors unanimously vote to regulate group housing, the solution to the problem just became even more complicated.

While the vote to regulate group housing is meant to better neighborhoods and community, it makes getting and maintaining these group houses harder. This is to stop the out of state drug addicts from being lured into the state through insurance fraud.

In many cases, out of state drug addicts are enticed into these group homes by a free plane ticket, and as soon as their insurance runs out, they are kicked out onto the streets and added to the large homeless population in California. Many believe regulating group housing will not only lower the homeless population but also lower crime rate in the state and county.

With California having some of the most underwhelming set of laws for crime in the U.S, it is unlikely that the crime rate will drop a significant amount even if the group home regulations work the way they are planned. Most likely to happen is the group home regulation put up strict rules that force more addicts onto the streets since they can not find a place that will take them in.

Don Wagner, a member of the Orange County board of supervisors for the third district, lead the push to regulate group homes after a scandal in 2018 that placed charges on five doctors, two executives and four other people in an insurance fraud case through group homes.

While many homeowners in Orange County are optimistic in the attempt to lower crime rate and the homeless population through regulating group homes, it should be noted that the idea has its problems and looks to be not thought out thoroughly.

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