Shelter From the Malathion Storm : Sanctuary: Homeless invited to take refuge at Anaheim ministry of the Crystal Cathedral during aerial spraying. The state program takes more heat.

The Crystal Cathedral will open its doors to the homeless tonight, offering them shelter in one of its ministry buildings when malathion is sprayed over a 36-mile area around Garden Grove.

At a press conference Wednesday, Orange County Supervisor Harriett M. Wieder said that the church will also offer the haven when central Orange County is sprayed in mid-March and April.

Lawyers for the homeless had failed on Tuesday to convince a federal judge that spraying should be blocked until needy people could find shelter from the pesticide, which many believe could be harmful to humans.

Wieder used the Crystal Cathedral announcement to lash out at Gov. George Deukmejian and other state officials for being insensitive to public fears raised by the program to combat the Mediterranean fruit fly.

“While we do have an answer to how we handle the homeless while the spraying is going on,” Wieder said, the controversy “really reflects poor planning on the part of the governor and on the part of the (state) Department of Food and Agriculture.”

Under an agreement worked out Tuesday afternoon, homeless people will be put up at the headquarters for Crystal Cathedral’s Helping Hands ministry, on Dupont Circle in Anaheim, Wieder said. The county will deliver cots and blankets for the 50 to 100 homeless people expected to stay overnight.

The Orange County Homeless Issues Task Force, a private nonprofit group, will provide vans for transportation and pick up the homeless from gathering points throughout the area at 5 p.m. They will be returned to the gathering points by 7:30 Friday morning, a spokesman for the task force said.

On Wednesday afternoon officials were still trying to select the pickup sites, but said they would include Pioneer Park and Garden Grove Park in Garden Grove, the corners of First and Fairview Streets in Santa Ana, Hart Park in Orange and a still-to-be chosen church in Huntington Beach.

State officials, Wieder said, have agreed to provide three social workers to staff the overnight shelter.

“They finally are listening and trying to be reasonable,” Wieder said of the officials.

The Rev. Robert Schuller, pastor of the Crystal Cathedral, said the decision to help out was purely humanitarian and not related to recent publicity over a spraying exemption granted to his church’s famous glass sanctuary in Garden Grove. In January state helicopters were kept clear of the cathedral because of an outdoor dinner Schuller was hosting for 2,700 ministers from around the country.

“Heavenly days no,” Schuller said when asked if the adverse publicity had been a factor. “That’s a cynical question. If you have an empty space that could be used for some homeless people . . . that’s just common humanity.”

At the board’s regular meeting Wednesday, a county agricultural official announced that the Department of Food and Agriculture will hold a hearing on malathion spraying on March 19 from 1 to 8 p.m in the county’s Hall of Administration. Citizens who want to speak at the session must register between noon and 1 p.m., the county official said.

Both Wieder and Supervisor Roger R. Stanton, who represent the Orange County districts where most of the spraying is directed and who oppose it, questioned the point of holding the hearing. Stanton noted that the sponsor was “not exactly a neutral party.”

Said Wieder: “I think it’s a lot of spinning of wheels to justify their actions.”

As they have done since last November, county supervisors renewed their proclamation declaring the battle against the Medfly to be a local emergency. Board Chairman Don R. Roth and Supervisors Thomas F. Riley and Gaddi H. Vasquez supported the measure, while Wieder and Stanton voted against it.

Vasquez and Roth, who have steadfastly supported the declaration of an emergency, indicated mounting frustration with the procedure. Roth complained that even without the board’s approval, the state can proceed with the spraying.

Roth said he would continue to support the local emergency declaration because it provides the county immunity against lawsuits in the event of a catastrophe.