‘We need to do more, not less,’ a pastor said. : Homeless Languish in Liberal Laguna

A shaggy-haired, stooped old man scurries from one end of the beach to the other, pausing only to rummage through each trash can along the way.

“I’m in a hurry, and haven’t got time to talk,” he says. “I’ve got to finish with these trash cans. Then I’m going to sit down on the bench over there and read the newspaper.”

A woman with a black cat’s mask painted around her eyes and a black pony tail that drags the ground has time to talk, though. She says her name is Abigail Ettinger and that she writes lyrics for Led Zeppelin, models for a living and her relatives include a former middle linebacker for the New York Giants, a top orthopedic surgeon and a captain in Britain’s Royal Air Force. “I’m schizophrenic,” she says matter of factly. “I have lots of different personalities, but I’m not dangerous.”

Donald Juan Wheeler, another one of Laguna Beach’s resident homeless, was not so harmless: he told police he grew tired of being harassed by them, so he placed a stick of dynamite outside City Hall Jan. 17 and blew out the windows of the city manager’s office.

Between 50 and 100 homeless people roam the streets of Laguna Beach every day. Some have serious mental problems. Others are simply down and out, or alcoholics, or drug addicts. Occasionally, some become violent, as Wheeler and a companion are alleged to have done last week, and another man did last year when he fatally knifed a fellow transient in an alley.

Faced with these circumstances, Laguna Beach, a city with liberal social values but to a large extent dependent on visitors’ dollars, is at a loss for ideas on what to do about the homeless, or for them. There are only two shelters for the homeless in Orange County south of Newport Beach: St. Clement’s By-the-Sea, a small Episcopal church in San Clemente that leaves its doors open at night for a handful of transients, and St. Mary’s Episcopal Church in Laguna Beach, which runs a more organized hostel.

No Solution Claimed

“None of us has a solution,” Laguna Beach Councilwoman Bobbie Minkin said. “There are lots of different types of problems. The general population is starting to get a little unraveled by the presence of so many strange-acting and strange-looking folks.”

Parishioners of St. Clement’s gathered Sunday to discuss the church’s open-door ministry in the wake of a rash of burglaries that has cost the historic church of some its most cherished artifacts. Some congregation members wanted the church to lock its doors at night and keep the homeless out, but the Rev. Robert Boyer said, “The consensus favored leaving the church open.”

Boyer contended that the attention focused on the problem by the burglaries “has brought to light that we need to do more, not less.” A task force from St. Clement’s will soon begin working with other churches, city officials and the community to find another location for a transient shelter, Boyer said. In the meantime, the church will remain open. “My hope is that we will develop a strong group of people who are able to make some concrete program available to the single homeless in San Clemente,” he added.

‘Bums on Main Beach’

At a recent Laguna Beach City Council meeting, Councilman Dan Kenney said he had heard more complaints from residents about “the bums on Main Beach” than about anything else in town. “There needs to be a clear distinction drawn between the resident homeless who hang out and sell drugs and those with real psychological problems,” Kenney maintained. “The individuals breaking the law need to be dealt with. The perception in town is that we’re too lenient.”

When Wheeler was arrested just hours after the City Hall bombing, police said he told them that he was tired of being harassed and wanted to deliver a message that he should be left alone. Police Chief Neil Purcell said Wheeler has had minimal contact with the police since he came to town about a year ago.

“He really hasn’t created problems for himself or for us,” Purcell said. However, Wheeler’s alleged accomplice, James Louis Durand, has been in state prison three times for burglary, auto theft, assault and battery and resisting arrest, and has used 26 aliases, officials said.

Purcell said his officers regularly arrest transients for offenses such as shoplifting, drinking or urinating in public and sleeping on private property.

“I don’t feel we harass them, but we do make a fair amount of arrests that involve transients. For this small city, they seem to commit their share of crimes. I hate the thought of what this town would look like in terms of antisocial behavior and crime if we did not hold a fairly hard line on trespassing or sleeping on the beaches.”

Judge Differs

But Judge Pamela Lee Iles in South Orange County Municipal Court said that treating transients who are little more than a nuisance as criminals is a mistake. “I have real criminals down here, and the jail is real crowded,” Iles said. “If I have somebody who is a dangerous person, I’ll put them in jail. But someone who spent last night on the beach, I’m not going to maintain them at taxpayer expense. It is costing us a fortune; for 40 bucks a night, I could put them up at a Holiday Inn.”

What is needed, Iles said, is money from the state and county for a minimum-care facility where the homeless can sleep, eat and be referred to other agencies for mental health care. “Some of these people are intelligent, but they’re not always on the same channel. With services, they can be fine-tuned and live a more settled life style. Some can’t do that.”

St. Mary’s Episcopal Church houses about 50 people a night, but the church is unable to supervise the homeless and get them the help--in some cases, mental health care--that they need, Iles said. “We can’t order them to go up to Santa Ana where the services are congregated. The county has money, and they’ve got to take a look at providing services down here. If the church should stop providing services tomorrow, we’d be in a fix, and I’m kind of upset about that.”

A Move for Services

Dennis White, executive director of the Episcopal Service Alliance office in Mission Viejo, said that while the southern part of the county has been neglected in the past, “there is a move forward to get more services down here.”

A shelter for homeless families is expected to open in the south county within six months, White said, and organizations such as United Way are increasing their services in the area. “Part of it is our fault; we haven’t focused on the needs of the south county like we should have,” White added.

But he contended that the lack of services for the homeless is felt countywide, not just in the south county, adding: “There are an estimated 4,000 to 6,000 homeless (countywide), with only 400 beds available each night. There’s not enough anyplace.”