Homeless Center Rejects a Helping Hand : Charity: The St. Vincent de Paul/Joan Kroc Center turns down a $2-million construction effort by builders because of uncertainty that it has the money to operate a new shelter.

Shortly before the Building Industry Assn. of San Diego County was to begin construction of a $2-million homeless shelter, the board of directors of the St. Vincent de Paul/Joan Kroc Center for the Homeless has declined the group’s offer in order not to overextend the center’s budget, a spokesman for the center confirmed.

Msgr. Joe Carroll, the director of the St. Vincent de Paul operation, said his board decided the venture would be imprudent in light of the recent opening of the Bishop Maher Center and of expensive, continuing litigation over the cleanup of ground water contamination near the center. He said the center could not guarantee it could afford to run a new homeless shelter as well.

“It’s a phenomenal gift to be getting, but we’re not in the position to say we can run with it,” said Carroll, who insisted that the decision does not indicate that the center is in financial trouble. “We’re paying all our bills. That’s not the problem. . . . But to obligate ourselves to this with these other burdens potentially facing us would not be the responsible thing to do.”

Construction of the shelter had been scheduled to begin this month across from the St. Vincent de Paul/Joan Kroc Center located at 15th Street and Imperial Avenue.

The Building Industry Assn. had been raising funds to build the shelter since October, when it announced its plans to volunteer time and materials to construct the 300-person facility, complete with medical clinic, social services office and public school. When the project was called off two weeks ago, the architectural drawings were already complete and a conditional use permit had been obtained from the city, according to Daren Groth, president of the Building Industry Assn. Cares Foundation.

“We not only had a lot of momentum going, we had a lot of commitments of in-kind labor and materials. We have a lot of enthusiasm--and no project. Both sides kind of lost out,” Groth said.

But he said that, although builders are disappointed, they understood the board’s reasoning.

“There isn’t anybody mad at anybody. There is no blame, there is no fault, there is a series of occurrences that made . . . 1990 not the time for this project,” Groth said. Among those, he said, were Bishop Maher’s recent illness and the failure to resolve the center’s ground-water lawsuit.

In February, the center won an apparent legal victory when a judge ruled that its neighbor, California Linen Supply, should pay $14.6 million to clean up the seepage of dry-cleaning chemicals from underground storage tanks into the ground water. Subsequently, however, the judge ordered that the damages should be re-evaluated because an ineligible witness had been allowed to testify. A new trial is set to begin in August.

Carroll said that, because the cleanup is expected to cost $5 million and because the center still does not know how much it will recover from California Linen Supply, the Building Industry Assn.’s offer had to be declined.

“Until that was clarified, how could we obligate ourselves for another $3 million?” he asked, noting that the new shelter would probably cost the center about that much to set up and run.

“None of us feel good about this announcement,” he added. “Believe me, I don’t like turning down millions of dollars.”