Irvine Council Accepts 2 Run-Down Farmhouses for Homeless

The Irvine City Council on Tuesday night voted to accept two dilapidated farmhouses for conversion into shelters for the homeless.

The council, in a 5-0 vote, accepted the Irvine Co.’s offer to donate the two houses.

The city’s next step is to find an agency to run the homeless program. Assistant City Manager Paul Brady said he would submit the proposal to Irvine Temporary Housing, a nonprofit agency, for consideration at its next board meeting May 24.

ITH board members attending Tuesday’s council meeting expressed a willingness to administer the program, and if ITH officially agrees to participate, Brady said the council would likely give final approval to the program at a future meeting.

The farmhouse approval came several months after the city failed in its effort to convert part of an animal shelter into a 50-bed center for the homeless. The nationally publicized kennel measure, which drew angry opposition from numerous local residents, was approved by the council last fall but was later vetoed by the federal government, which was asked to put up funds for the conversion.

The farmhouse proposal drew both support and opposition before Tuesday night’s council vote.

Critics complained that the two farmhouses are structurally unsafe and that they are in an isolated area where criminals could prey on the homeless. Proponents said the farmhouses are better than sleeping in cars and in fields, as they say some homeless people are now forced to do.

The farmhouses, on Irvine Co. agricultural property near Sand Canyon Avenue and the Santa Ana Freeway, are to be used to house the city’s estimated two dozen homeless--most of them single women and their children, city officials said. Used for the past 50 years by company field hands, the houses are large enough to accommodate five people each.

“I drove by those farmhouses at 11 p.m. Friday night and frankly it’s dark and desolate,” said Irvine mayoral candidate Barry Hammond, 36. “My 6-year-old son said: ‘Dad, let’s get out of here. This is spooky.’ ”

Mark Roy, 36, a draftsman, complained to the council that the farmhouses were too dilapidated for habitation. He cited results of a city inspection, which found such problems as sagging floors, wall and ceiling cracks, frayed electrical wiring and roofing deterioration. Bolts are missing that anchor the houses to their foundations, the city reports said.

“Both houses are in very, very poor shape,” Roy said. “Basically, in the event of an earthquake, the things could slide right off their foundations.”

City officials maintained, however, that the farmhouses would be perfectly safe after they are refurbished. City staff members estimated that it would cost up to $14,000 to upgrade them to meet minimum health and safety standards. However, the council was told Tuesday that free labor and materials have been offered by several private organizations.

Critics Hammond and Roy had advocated providing housing through Irvine Temporary Housing, which uses city and federal funds to place homeless families in apartments. The agency is now paying apartment rents for five families.

Hammond further said that putting the homeless in one isolated area strips them of their pride and self-esteem.

But three residents who took the podium disagreed, and expressed support for the farmhouse proposal.

Sylvia Easton, head of the city’s ad hoc committee on the homeless, charged that Hammond, in particular, was “playing politics” because of his mayoral campaign. She said that neither Hammond nor Roy had previously expressed concern for the plight of the homeless. “I’m almost ashamed to listen to this,” she said.

And resident Herbert Hersch urged the council: “Make a decision tonight. Provide for the homeless.”

The council rejected as unsuitable two other farmhouses also offered by the Irvine Co., and referred consideration of a third farmhouse to the Irvine Historical Society.

Larry Agran, an appointed mayor seeking to retain his position in Irvine’s first mayoral election on June 7, has been a principal proponent behind both the animal shelter and farmhouse proposals. Agran has appealed to residents of the master-planned community to do their “fair share” to help house Orange County’s estimated 5,000 homeless.

“We have the moral obligation to do the best we can do to provide people with decent housing,” Agran declared.