Mentally Disabled : Church Tries to Evict 250 in Job Project

A Woodland Hills church has filed a petition to evict a job-training project for about 250 mentally disabled adults that has leased space in the church’s annex for 12 years.

The petition was filed in Van Nuys Superior Court on Wednesday because Work Training Program, a nonprofit, state-funded organization, refuses to vacate the premises, said William Vanderbok, trustee chairman of the Woodland Hills United Methodist Church, 5650 Shoup Ave.

“From our perspective, it’s become a matter of survival,” Vanderbok said. The parties have been without a lease for a year, and negotiations to arrange a compromise have been fruitless, he said.

But Harriet Rechtman, the job-training group’s project manager, said Work Training Program has been looking for an affordable place to go since it became apparent that the church wanted the program to leave.

Eviction Notice

“We do not understand how they could take such an action,” Rechtman said of the church’s eviction notice, which the group received Thursday.

If the parties cannot reconcile their differences, a court hearing will be scheduled on the matter.

The job-training group has shared half of the 5,000-square-foot annex with the parish’s Sunday school since 1976. The church says the group has encroached on the Sunday school’s space as the training program has grown.

The expansion poses a problem for the church, whose membership has declined sharply in the past 10 years from 850 to 240, Vanderbok said.

Work Training Program is based in Santa Barbara with satellites in Thousand Oaks and Woodland Hills. It teaches mentally disabled people to live and work on their own.

The group is paying $2,081 a month in rent. That rate was set in the lease, which expired June 1, 1987. At that time, the group was informed that the congregation would consider in the fall whether to renew the lease.

In September, the church decided to cut back the job-training group’s space in the annex, Vanderbok said. In December, the group told the church that it planned to move by June 30 or as soon it could find affordable accommodations, Rechtman said.

However, she said, the state Department of Developmental Services limits how much such programs can pay a landlord, so the group has been unable to move.

The church has asked the group to sign a six-month lease retroactive to January. The lease includes escalating penalty payments that increase $250 each month the group stays past June.

“It would be irresponsible for us to sign such a document,” Rechtman said.