Pastor Fights to Save Rehab Center : Regulations: State and city officials order the clients to leave 2 homes, citing code violations.

For almost two years, Pastor Eddie Rodriguez operated an unlicensed rehabilitation center to help drug addicts and alcoholics fight to stay clean and sober.

Now, Rodriguez says he is fighting to save the center itself in a squabble with state and city officials over his acknowledged lack of permits and licenses to operate.

On Tuesday, 29 men who had been living at his New Harvest Men’s Home, a pair of houses at 130 and 124 Hewes St. in Orange, were ordered to leave because the operation is unlicensed and the buildings don’t comply with city occupancy limits and fire codes. The men are now staying at an office building adjacent to the ministry’s assembly hall at 1325 Grand Ave. in Santa Ana.

“It’s becoming a crime now to help people,” said Rodriguez, who also founded On Fire Ministries in Santa Ana. “I don’t know what to do. We’re going to have to close down what I think is the most successful drug rehabilitation program in the county.”

State investigators from the community care licensing bureau of the Social Services department issued the pastor a penalty notice in May, listing his failure to obtain a permit. Another notice was issued in November for allowing a boy to live in what is intended to be an adult home. “I understand that we need rules and regulations,” Rodriguez said. “But I can’t wait years to get permits to help people.”

The pastor said it would cost $60,000 to comply with codes and obtain the necessary permits.

State and city officials said that the rules are for the safety of the center’s occupants.

“I would be the first to say that that is a very amicable and needed service,” said Tony C’DeBaca, chief building official for the city of Orange. But living in an allegedly substandard building is “endangering their lives.”

C’DeBaca said that the New Harvest location didn’t have proper plumbing and heating, and inspectors found electrical wires that were a fire hazard. In addition, he said, a garage and shed were used for living quarters and the houses were overcrowded.

Rodriguez disputes the city’s claims.

“There were only three men to a bedroom,” he said. “The way it was written up, they said wall-to-wall mattresses.”

Although C’DeBaca said that center residents could move back into the home if On Fire Ministries and the owner comply with the law, Rodriguez instead has found a new house to rent in Santa Ana for 10 of the members. But he doesn’t know what to do about the rest.

“We’re going to have to tell them to leave,” he said. “It’s going to be a real heavy blow. Some of the other ones we’re going to have to turn out.

“How am I as a Christian man to tell people that ‘we cannot help you’? I really don’t know what to do.”

New Harvest started almost two years ago, first operating out of the pastor’s home, then out of a trailer and eventually the two houses in Orange. Since then, 104 men and women have been treated, 91 successfully, Rodriguez said.

Frank Rhemrev, deputy city attorney for Santa Ana, denied that his city is putting pressure on the pastor to shut down.

Rhemrev said he hasn’t talked with Rodriguez about the legality of housing rehabilitation clients at the church office in Santa Ana and said he is unsure if it violates any city codes. An inspection could be pending, he said, and if they are ordered to leave, the city would take steps to help move them.

“It could be a possible violation,” Rhemrev said. “But we want to work with them. We don’t want to go out there with, quote-unquote, ‘guns blazing.’ . . . We don’t want to throw anyone on the streets.”

Rodriguez, who grew up in Pomona, started his church ministry in Orange and then, since November 1988, has also operated in Santa Ana.

The city filed suit against On Fire Ministries in March for allegedly operating its assembly hall without proper fire exits. Rhemrev said the hall at times contained more than 300 people. But since then, the church has agreed to conduct assemblies of no more than 100.

Since the suit was filed, the church has submitted plans for improving the hall, and the city has been satisfied, Rhemrev said.

“It’s a little slower than we would have liked,” Rhemrev said. “We’re giving them some leeway on this. Our intent is to certainly work with them as much as necessary.”