Neighbors Battle Pair Seeking to Build Home for Recovering Addicts

Costa Mesa developer Bob Ward and his son, Dee, say they want to give something back.

The Wards, both recovering alcoholics, want to build a 24-bed halfway house in the College Park neighborhood of Costa Mesa that would offer round-the-clock treatment for those who need help getting off the bottle or kicking their drug addiction.

But area residents, who already complain about an existing six-bed halfway house for alcoholics on the site, say they will oppose the Wards’ plan when it comes before the city Planning Commission Aug. 14 because they fear an even larger facility would attract drunks and homeless people.

“We’re all very upset about this,” Wake Forest Road resident Jemma Jones said Wednesday of Ward Investment Co.’s plans to raze the house in the 300 block of West Wilson Street and build a new, two-story facility to be called Harbor House. The existing house borders Wilson Park on one side and Harbor Shopping Center on Harbor Boulevard on the other.

‘Cause for Concern’

“To have our piece of mind jeopardized is certainly a cause for concern,” Jones said.

The impending fight over the planned, 36,000-square-foot facility, to some extent, mirrors that of residents living near the Rea Community Center about 10 blocks away. There, residents earlier this summer successfully fought a poverty relief agency in their midst. After emotional public hearings, the City Council voted not to renew the lease of Share Our Selves, which for years has provided food, vouchers for lodging and some medical assistance to the poor.

In the case of College Park, Jones and other residents claim that the expanded Harbor House would add to traffic and increase the number of homeless people who camp out in nearby Wilson Park.

In the past two weeks, residents say they have gathered more than 500 signatures on petitions against Harbor House that they plan to present to planning commissioners Aug. 14. The commission will be considering a conditional-use permit to allow multiple-family zoning in the area. If approved, residents can appeal the permit to the City Council, which would then make a final determination.

“This is the first time in my life I’ve been in a fight,” said resident Alice Beck, who lives three doors from the site. “I just wish I knew how to fight better.”

But Dee Ward sees it differently. In one of several letters to homeowners announcing the proposal, he said the center would be a role model for those with nowhere else to go. And the prohibitive cost, from $1,000 to $4,000 a month, would keep out vagrants.

‘Made the Scapegoat’

“This project is not going to attract homeless people, winos, bag ladies and transients,” 30-year-old Dee Ward said Wednesday. “When they pay so much money, they’re not coming there to sip wine. I was made the scapegoat for the problems of the park.”

Bob Ward, who, like his son, required treatment at the Betty Ford Center in Palm Desert, hopes residents will see that the proposed project is beneficial.

“If they could only open their eyes to what they’re fussing about,” said Bob Ward, 58. “When my mother died, she had never seen me sober. I have a lot of giving back to do.”

Dee Ward said the project is expected to cost about $800,000. When finished, Harbor House would provide a home for 24 recovering alcoholics or drug addicts ranging in age from 18 to 64, all people who are “committed to a lifetime of sobriety,” he added.

A professional staff would oversee the operation, and about a quarter of the beds would be available to the public on a walk-in basis, provided they can pay. Plans also include an underground parking garage, offices and a kitchen with a view of the park.

To expand the site, the company twice has asked William Collins, 75, to sell his 25-year-old Wake Forest Road home next to the Wards’ property to make room for a parking lot. But Collins said he won’t budge.

“If (the company) can do that, would they give me a permit to put in a pig farm?” Collins asked half-jokingly, adding that he and his invalid wife would have nowhere else to go if he had accepted the developers’ offer of $250,000. “They can get away with it no matter what we do.”

The company, which built condominiums on the west side of the property, acquired the present halfway house when the wife of Clay Ellis, a man who once owned the tract, died more than a year ago.

Six recovering alcoholics live unsupervised in the single-story house, which neighbors say is a source of noise, traffic and junk--including tires and mattresses strewn by the side of the house.

“If they were really concerned about the neighborhood and the people living there now, they wouldn’t have the mattress there now,” Alice Beck said. “They’re really in this for monetary reasons. We’re the ones with the small pockets.”

But Dee Ward responded: “Sure it looks like hell now. Everything is still being planned.”

Residents of the halfway house, who would have to move if Harbor House is approved, said the facility, which is managed by the Hamilton House of Corona del Mar, now offers them another chance at life. They said they would like to see a larger house that could touch more people.

“Had it not been for this house, I don’t know if I’d be here,” said Ed Peden, a 46-year-old Vietnam veteran who is paying $75 a week to live there. “This has benefited me. I can now continue going on. I don’t need to sleep in parks anymore.”

Peden and fellow resident Dennis Deguzman said that through group discussions and everyday life with other recovering alcoholics, they have new-found confidence to take on responsibilities.

“I’m realizing what living is,” Deguzman said. “It’s a program of honesty. You don’t have to lie anymore.”

Peden, who has lived in the house since Dec. 30, 1988, said residents of the house are always sober and that they respect the surrounding area.

“It surprises me that we’ve had complaints, to be honest with you,” he said, sitting on a sofa in the living room of the house.

Such homes can coexist peacefully with neighbors, said Kay Brown, executive director of New Directions, a two-story, 6,000-square-foot halfway house for women alcoholics in a residential neighborhood on Willo Lane in Costa Mesa. And success rates for women staying off alcohol can be as high as 50%, she added.

“We’re not an attraction for the bad element,” Brown said. “We’ve been fortunate with good neighbors. I hope it can work in other areas.”

Still, College Park residents are finding parallels to the SOS controversy.

“I felt sorry for those residents,” Jones said of neighbors of the Rea Community Center. “I just don’t want the same to happen to us.”