Code Enforcement Would Evict Unwed Mothers, Children : Downey Seeks to Close Church Home

City officials say they will go to court in the next week to try to close a church home for unwed mothers because the building is in violation of numerous city safety and zoning laws and is a fire hazard.

But if the home, called His Nesting Place, is closed, 20 women and children will be left out in the streets, says Pastor Al Howard of the Confirmed Word Faith Center. The nondenominational evangelical church on Priscilla Avenue runs the home as an alternative to abortion.

The confrontation between the city and the church will take place in Downey Municipal Court, after the city in the next week files criminal misdemeanor charges and seeks to close the home if it is not evacuated by then, said city Prosecutor Martin J. Mayer.

In an interview Wednesday, Howard said he would not take the women and children out of the home.

He admitted the violations, but said that city officials were being too “aggressive” in enforcing the law and are overlooking moral issues.

‘Nowhere to Go’

“These people have nowhere to go,” Howard said of the pregnant women, single unwed mothers and children staying temporarily at the church home.

“We saw a need and out of compassion we acted,” Howard said. “The Bible says if you see the poor take them into your house, if you see the naked, clothe them.”

Of the legal violations raised by city officials, Howard said, “It’s a couple of people insisting that you’ve got to go by the rule book, you’ve got to go by the code. But what about the code of decency, what about the code of compassion? It’s pretty cold out there at night to be out with nowhere to go.”

Countered Mayer, “Without being melodramatic, this is the type of situation where you could have a fire and people die. You can’t keep women and children in unsafe and hazardous conditions in violation of a half-dozen laws.”

Mayer said the home must be evacuated in the next week because it is in violation of numerous fire, building and zoning codes. The church was given notice of the violations in January but has done nothing, leaving city officials with no alternative but to go to court, Mayer said.

Residential Zoning

The home needs automatic emergency exit bars on several doors, a fire wall and more lavatory facilities, Mayer said. The home also is located on residentially zoned property and a year ago was illegally converted from a church schoolhouse, Mayer said.

The charges the city will file against the church are for a variety of violations, including 10 of the city fire code, Mayer said, adding that the building code infractions are so numerous that the city has lost count. Each charge carries a penalty of $500 and six months in jail, although Mayer said that in six years as city prosecutor, only one person has been sent to jail.

He added that in the event of a fire, the city may be liable to lawsuits because it did not act to correct violations that officials were aware of.

The city fire and building inspectors went to the home in January after receiving complaints from neighbors. Mayer said the city has given Howard preferential treatment because of the church’s “humanitarian” work, saying that if the building was operated by a business, the city would have sought to close it after 10 days.

Howard admits the church has not made the required repairs.

‘We’re Willing’

“They say we’ve done nothing, and we haven’t done much about their requirements because we don’t have the money. We’re willing to meet their codes. It’s just a matter of the money and having the time,” Howard said.

Howard estimates it will cost several thousand dollars to make the improvements demanded by the city. But he said the 75 members of his congregation do not have much money and what little they do have is being used to buy a house in La Puente for more than $100,000. That house would be used for another home for unwed mothers and single pregnant women.

Howard, 46, a diminutive former Navy coxswain and test driver for General Motors, is known as a prominent anti-abortionist who has led hundreds of marchers in protests at abortion clinics in Long Beach and Downey. The pastor, who has 11 children from two marriages, also has a five-day-a-week radio show that preaches against abortion.

He said some of the women at the church home are “society’s rejects.”

“They put a welfare check in their hand and pushed them off into some Skid Row motel. They need a lot of love--they’ve never had that,” he said.

Church Volunteers

Howard said that some mothers at the home have been talked out of abortions by church volunteers that they met outside abortion clinics.

The home charges $200 a month per woman, plus $25 per child--with a maximum fee of $250 per month--which comes out of welfare checks, said Howard. If a woman is not on welfare and so cannot pay, Howard said, they are not charged.

At the home, the church imposes a structured environment, requiring women to be at the breakfast table at 8 a.m. and in bed by 11 p.m., Howard said. The women are required to do chores such as painting rooms or mowing lawns. They also are required to open a bank account to save some money from their welfare checks for when they leave the home.

One of the unwed mothers at the home recently was Susie Gallardo, 20, who was mopping a floor while her 21-month-old son, Rocky, played nearby.

Gallardo said she was living with her father two months ago in Arcadia when he was forced to leave his apartment.

How Gallardo found the Downey church is typical of women at the home.

‘Nowhere to Go’

“I had nowhere to go,” she said. “I thought I was going to spend the night in a park.”

She and her son were picked up by a family friend at a phone booth in Pasadena after making numerous calls looking for a place to stay. The friend, who had heard of the church, drove the mother and son there, where they share a one-room apartment that has a bed for Gallardo and a crib for Rocky. She said she is studying to use a word processor and that she is saving money to afford a home for Rocky and herself.

“I thank God for this place,” she said.

Denise Smith, 20, unwed and seven months pregnant, rode a Greyhound bus from Cleveland with her year-old son James to visit her cousins, but when she got to California, she found that they had moved.

“I didn’t know what to do,” she said. “I didn’t have a penny in my pocket.”

Alenides Vickrey, 25, a native of Brazil, is also unwed and pregnant. Her baby is due in October. She said she last lived at a Skid Row motel in Orange County that cost her $500 a month, almost all of her welfare check. She said she didn’t have a car and used to become nauseated from car exhaust while pushing her two children around town in a baby carriage searching for a better place to live.

“If you’re living in a motel there’s always people going in and out, and they drink and they party,” she said.

While she was talking, her 5-year-old son, John, was sitting on a worn couch in her room, watching cartoons on a small black-and-white TV. Vickrey’s 18-month-old daughter, Stephanie, wearing a blue dress and matching ribbon in her hair, was asleep on a rug, a milk bottle lying by her side.

‘You’re by Yourself’

“It’s hard when you’re by yourself with three kids and nobody to help you,” she said. “I know I can’t live here forever.”

Debbie Lane, 30, has been at the home the longest of the 10 mothers who live there. She came to the home nine months ago after living with her mother in Upland.

“When I told her I was pregnant, she called the police,” Lane said. “She said she couldn’t have a baby crying in her apartment. With no warning or anything, an officer came and said pack your bags, your mother wants you to leave.”

Lane’s 4-month-old son, Gary, was asleep in her crowded room when Lane led a visitor out in the hall to talk. Holding a bottle of infant formula, Lane said that before she heard about the church she called a pregnancy hot-line service, but was unable to find a place to stay.

“If it weren’t for places like this, a lot of women who are in trouble out there wouldn’t have any place to go,” she said. “I thank God for people like Pastor Al.”

She said she is “ashamed” to be on welfare, but that she and the baby’s father, Maurice Davidson, are saving money so that they can marry.

No Alternative

Davidson, working as a $3.60-an-hour security guard at Los Angeles International Airport, said he is “embarrassed” about taking the welfare money, but that the couple has no alternative because they have no home and no car.

“It’s really put a strain on the relationship,” he said. “I don’t get to see Debbie and the baby as often as I’d like.”

Upstairs, a volunteer, Kelly McFarlane, was frying sausage and mushrooms in a skillet, preparing five pounds of spaghetti for the evening dinner that will feed the 10 mothers and the 10 children.

Howard walked in, carrying a 23-day-old dark-haired infant. The pastor explained that the baby’s mother was a former Skid Row motel resident who became pregnant after being raped twice at the motel. He said the woman, who did not want to be interviewed, decided to have her baby.