Homeless Get Reprieve From Eviction : Ruling: Appeals court issues stay temporarily barring Caltrans from ordering residents to leave an encampment beneath a freeway overpass.

For now, at least, the residents of “Club Homeless� can stay put.

The 4th District Court of Appeal in Los Angeles on Monday stayed an Orange County judge’s ruling that had allowed Caltrans to evict a group of homeless from beneath a freeway overpass in Huntington Beach.

The stay effectively allows the group of about a dozen homeless men and women to remain in the encampment, where they had erected tents, closets and even a walled bathroom. Last week, they began sorting through their belongings as they prepared to leave the area. Some had lived there for three years.

The state appeals court issued the stay and asked Caltrans to respond by next Monday. The court is expected to conduct a hearing on the matter.

No matter what happens, the long-term prognosis for the homeless camp is not good, said Paul Gray, the group’s attorney.

“I don’t think they’ll be able to stay there,� Gray said. “The legal question is what is fair in terms of moving them off the property. Does Caltrans have to give them a sufficient amount of time or an alternative place?�

Caltrans has suggested a number of shelters where the transients can be housed, but Gray said few of them have the long-term services these individuals will need, and none of them have a vacancy.

For the homeless residents themselves, Monday’s court victory was mostly a hollow one.

The camp has all but disbanded because of the dispute with Caltrans, and most of the residents have scattered.

One former resident, 38-year-old Craig Fritts, said police entered the camp Thursday night with dogs and now he and the others are afraid to return.

“We’re really scared to go back,� said Fritts, 38, who said he would spend $35 from his monthly $109-welfare check to sleep in a motel room Monday night.

He said a local Catholic church paid for him to spend the two previous nights in a motel.

“Everything that I managed to salvage is in the motel room,� he said.

Gray said that the residents of the camp have done what they can to stay hidden, but Caltrans is still not satisfied.

“These people have gotten themselves out of the way of the general public and found a way to survive and that doesn’t seem to be any good either,� Gray said. “Nobody likes homeless people under foot and they don’t like it themselves.�

Caltrans officials say they are getting ready to landscape the area as part of a nearly $1-million highway beautification project. They also have stressed that the area is a health hazard to the homeless and that they are constantly in danger by being so close to the freeway.

Meanwhile, in Santa Ana, a cluster of homeless men are facing a similar threat of eviction from the fly-infested garbage dump they consider home.

Secluded behind piles of trash and old furniture near a cluster of construction supply yards, two men who identified themselves only as Bob, 35, Mike, 41, and Mike’s two dogs and six rats, have made themselves a home, along with another friend.

About a week ago, Caltrans officials posted signs warning against “loiterers� who block the road, said Jere Witter, a homeless activist who works with the Legal Aid Society. And last Wednesday, the men say, Santa Ana police told them they had until today to clear out.

Neighboring construction and electric supply yards have complained of break-ins and stolen scrap metal and suspect the homeless men, Mike said. Police also told them that property owners were finding a lot of used syringes in the area.

“They put the blame on the closest people, because we’re homeless and we’re right here,� said Bob, who denied ever breaking into the construction yards but said he has watched other people do so.

Times staff writer Tammerlin Drummond contributed to this report.