Salvation Army Off-Limits for Plan Using U.S. Funds

Anaheim officials were surprised Tuesday to learn that the city would lose federal money if it went ahead with its plan to house part of an anti-gang program in offices owned by the Salvation Army, a religious organization.

Bowing to demands by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development , which said the city’s proposed contract with the Salvation Army would violate the doctrine of separation of church and state, city officials now seek to house youth outreach and recreation services elsewhere.

Although city officials said they hoped to keep the Christian organization involved in the program, perhaps by moving it to another site that the group would still oversee, an Orange County Salvation Army spokesman squelched the notion of such a compromise.

“We don’t de-emphasize to anybody our Christian goals behind any of the programs that we do,” said Salvation Army Capt. Joseph L. Huttenlocker. “And we sure wouldn’t allow the name of the Salvation Army to be transferred from this premises to another premises. We’re not going to allow ourselves to be secularly incorporated,” said Huttenlocker, head of the Anaheim branch of the organization.

The city was ready to sign a $98,112 three-year contract with the Salvation Army when the council learned of the restrictions at its Tuesday afternoon session.

To avert the loss of federal block grant money, the council Tuesday went ahead with plans to contract with the Boys Club of Buena Park and the Anaheim Family YMCA. Although the YMCA--the Young Men’s Christian Assn.--was also founded on Christian ideals, HUD does not prohibit its involvement because the YMCA’s programs deal more with social, ethical and physical matters, said Norman J. Priest, Anaheim community development and planning executive director.

New Location Suggested

Steve E. Swaim, Anaheim community services division manager, said following the meeting that he hoped to keep the Salvation Army involved by finding a new location--such as at community centers--to meet the federal government’s directive, but Huttenlocker indicated that the city would need to find “somebody else other than a religious organization.”

HUD’s directive took Huttenlocker and council members by surprise. “That boggles my mind,” Councilman E. Llewellyn Overholt Jr. said upon learning of the restrictions. “I don’t think that directive makes any sense whatsoever.”

Huttenlocker said, “I couldn’t believe it. I was absolutely taken back by it--that they would make an issue of an outreach worker housed at the Salvation Army facility.

“We distribute over any given month over 10,000 pounds of USDA (U.S. Department of Agriculture) government surplus commodities and we haven’t had any problems with that particular program in respect to separation of church and state.”

The outreach services in question were to be set up in the Salvation Army offices in the Central City-downtown and the Patrick Henry-Manzanita Park areas, Huttenlocker said.

The two sites were to be used in a program for reducing youth crime. The program presented to the council in January recommended better youth outreach services, such as counseling, crisis intervention, information and referral programs. A 1984 report had concluded that there were no “formal (organized) gangs” in Anaheim but that the potential for gangs existed.