‘Not in My Neighborhood’ : SOS Backlash Typifies Reaction to Community-Based Aid Centers

When Diane Lee steps out of her Costa Mesa home at night, she carries a baseball bat. The family bought a dog to keep potential intruders at bay. Her two grown daughters can no longer run safely in the park near their home, she says, and she frequently washes urine and excrement from her fences.

The problems, she says, have grown in direct proportion to the growth of her longtime neighbor, Share Our Selves, a group which provides food, clothing and medical assistance to the needy.

“The more people that came (to SOS), the more undesirable people that came,” she says.

Her sentiments and those of some of her neighbors have not been ignored. Last week the Costa Mesa City Council refused to renew a lease for SOS at a neighborhood community center, giving the group six months to either find a new location or end its programs.

The dispute over SOS points to a thorny issue facing many communities over what responsibilities they shoulder for the needy in their midst. More and more, communities are rejecting groups and programs that cater to a variety of social needs, social welfare officials say.

Advocates for the needy say it is a troubling trend because it perpetuates stereotypes and makes it more difficult to deal with social problems that already seem intractable.

The so-called “NIMBY” sentiment (“not in my back yard”) “is a problem everywhere anybody tries to institute change. It is a natural reaction,” said Larry Leamon, County Social Services Agency director.

Leamon’s agency has been in a running--and so far unsuccessful--battle with Fullerton City Hall to open a welfare office in the city.

Business owners in the semi-industrial area near the proposed site have spoken out against the office, and both the Planning Commission and City Council have turned down permit requests.

“Potential neighbors spoke in unanimity against our occupancy, and one of the stated reasons was concern about ‘those’ people,’ ” Leamon said. “But there were other concerns about things like traffic flow. We are working with our potential landlord to redesign the project and will resubmit the package to the city this fall. Then it will be a clear test of whether ‘NIMBY’ is what is really going on.”

Instances of so-called “do-gooder backlash” have cropped up all around the country and have hindered politically savvy, well-connected and reputable programs, social welfare advocates say.

In the San Fernando Valley, for example, former First Lady Nancy Reagan withdrew support for a $10-million drug treatment center that was to bear her name after intense pressure was applied by neighbors, who complained that the facility would lower property values and attract crime and drugs to their streets.

In Orange County:

- The Center for Creative Alternatives, which offers drug- and alcohol-abuse counseling and provides emotional health services, was recently denied permission by the Huntington Beach Planning Commission to move to a new location in its same neighborhood after neighbors complained.

- Irvine officials scrapped plans to convert part of an animal shelter into temporary housing for the homeless after residents questioned the appropriateness of the shelter and argued that it would lure derelicts to the area.

- The Episcopal Service Alliance, trying to open a shelter for homeless women in Orange, was turned down by that city’s Planning Commission, but given permission by the City Council.

- When the Episcopal Service Alliance recently opened an office serving the homeless mentally ill in Laguna Beach, it received a firebombing threat.

- In Santa Ana, a group of business owners and residents is urging that the county welfare office and the Orange County Rescue Mission be moved from its neighborhood, alleging that the facilities have acted as a magnet for criminals.

Karol W. Vanzant, a Santa Ana business owner, said he has watched his block become a haven for “bums, drug abusers, panhandlers and transients” in the six years the rescue mission has been in the area.

“One day you don’t have a problem, and the next day you do. It’s like turning a light switch on,” Vanzant said.

“It is not conducive to business and has cost me literally thousands of dollars. . . . It’s scary for women. (Welfare and mission clients) call you names, harass you and threaten you if you don’t give them something. This area has become known as a free zone.”

Vanzant said that people attracted to the rescue mission are not truly needy and that groups donating food and clothing to them are misguided.

“I would like to see those that want help get it, but I am against the proliferation of drug and alcohol abusers. They have to want to change, and these people don’t want to change. The do-gooder groups have to understand the effect (helping them) has on the rest of society.”

Vanzant referred to a survey by police of 28 people in and around Center Park near the rescue mission. Police found that about 85% had criminal records for such crimes as burglary, theft, drug sales and public drunkenness.

Santa Ana Police Lt. Bruce Carlson said the area, just west of downtown, has a high crime rate, though not the highest in the city. “It is a very small survey, and whether you can connect these people to the rescue mission or any other organization is unknown,” he said.

John Lands, executive director of the rescue mission, agreed that some of Vanzant’s concerns are legitimate, but disputed his characterization of most rescue-mission clients.

Scott Mather, chairman of the Orange County Homeless Issues Task Force, said views like Vanzant’s and Lee’s stem from common myths and misperceptions about the homeless and needy.

A survey by the California Homeless Coalition, which Mather also chairs, listed the five most common fears that spring up in a neighborhood where services for the poor are provided: increased crime, urination in public, a decline in property values, attraction of undesirable people and molestation of children.

“It’s very hard to deal with these perceptions,” Mather said. “It’s a myth, like alligators in the sewers of New York. It becomes visceral, tied up in emotion, and people put up a siege mentality.”

He said members of SOS went to the Costa Mesa City Council meeting with figures demonstrating that property values in SOS’ west side neighborhood had not declined and that the crime rate had not increased. Costa Mesa police have repeatedly contradicted claims that SOS has attracted criminals to the area.

But Diane Lee says her fear is real.

“We used to be able to walk freely in this neighborhood,” she said. “There needs to be a place where all social service groups can be put together, outside of a residential area. I don’t think it’s fair to diminish someone else’s quality of life for a cause.”

Leamon agreed that some centers helping the needy may outgrow their neighborhoods.

“An organization that serves all comers is going to grow and will see a mix of the truly needy and some who are making the rounds,” he said. “When a community begins to be overwhelmed . . it may be time for the group to take a look at being more selective, at managing its population.”

Still, many advocates argue that such a policy wrongly blames victims of homelessness for their problems.

“You change the language--call them vagrants, derelicts, bums. Making them less human makes it a lot easier to do things that are not so nice,” Mather said.

“Once you start down that road, where is the line drawn?” said Vicki Walker, director of the Center for Creative Alternatives. “First, it’s homeless, then people with emotional problems, then maybe it’s people in wheelchairs or ethnic minorities.”

Whether neighborhoods succeed in keeping out welfare programs, the problems will remain, they say.

“The solution is not to run people out of one town to the next. There has to be communitywide involvement in trying to shelter these folks,” Leamon said.

Despite the perceived aversion toward efforts to help the homeless, Mather said the task force has made progress in gaining community support. There have been some successes, he said.

The Building Industry Assn. has begun a program to renovate existing homeless shelters.

The homeless issues task force is forming an interfaith shelter network, set to begin operation this fall, in which churches will house the homeless on a rotating basis during winter months.

And Fullerton city officials recently approved the opening of a shelter for homeless mentally ill women.

“I’m not a Pollyanna, but I’m hopeful,” Mather said. “These problems will be with us for a long time, but we will eventually resolve them to everyone’s benefit.”