Job Service, Not Soup Kitchen, Planned for Vista Firehouse Site : Social Service: If sale of the building is approved, housing and meals would be offered only as funds permit, Faith & Love Ministries said.

The nonprofit community group that wants to buy a surplus Vista fire station said Monday that the building would be used as an employment center for the “physically, mentally and economically disadvantaged,” but would not--at least for now--offer housing or meals.

The group said more people may be attracted to the employment center than can be served by the organization’s job counseling and referral service--and those persons may spill over into the neighborhood.

Paul Eckert, a former county supervisor who is a volunteer fund-raiser for Faith & Love Ministries, said the primary use of the surplus firehouse would be as an office for employment assistance, and that the staff would be able to help up to 50 persons a day.

He said the facility would operate from about 6 a.m. until early or mid-afternoon, by which time those who couldn’t find work would disperse on their own. He likened it to Encinitas’ employment hall for migrant workers.

“We can’t say (other) people won’t congregate, but we have the space for the (50) people to congregate if they’re availing themselves (of) . . . our services,” Eckert said at a Monday press conference that was called to better describe Faith & Love’s plans for the firehouse.

If people should loiter in the mostly commercial and industrial neighborhood, they would be subject to regular nuisance and loitering laws, he said.

The Rev. Doug Regin, pastor of St. Francis Catholic Church in Vista and president of Faith & Love’s board of directors, said he hopes that the county will provide the necessary zoning, if and when the sale of the firehouse to the ministry is completed.

“The county jurisdiction has to exercise its social conscience,” said Regin, who once headed community and outreach services for the Catholic Diocese in San Diego.

Regin said there is no better place in the area to provide such a service.

“We recognize the social need for this, and we recognize the opposition to it. The county will have to hold firm for this facility,” Regin said. “There will be expectations, rules and guidelines for those who use this service. We will provide a stable environment where they know they can come and be treated with respect.”

Candidates for help would first be screened to determine, among other things, whether they are free of alcohol and drug dependence. Those who pass muster would be offered showers, clothing and laundry service at the site.

The participants would get referrals for jobs, job training, continuing education, housing and drug- and alcohol-rehabilitation services. They also would have access to haircuts, bus tokens, mailboxes and telephones to assist in their job searches.

Eckert said Faith & Love Ministries has opened escrow to buy the firehouse from the Vista Fire Protection District, although district officials said they have not signed their end of the sales agreement and won’t until the city of Vista decides whether it wants to intervene in the sale.

The firehouse sale sparked a local protest that the fire protection district did not give adequate notice of the sale, in which Faith & Love was declared the highest and most responsible bidder.

Opponents have also argued that conversion of the firehouse into a homeless outreach center would attract an undesirable element to the neighborhood, near the 2200 block of South Santa Fe Avenue, just outside the eastern limits of the city.

Realtor Karen Kunze, who has emerged as a spokeswoman for many of the opponents, said “It’s good, that that’s what they now want to do with it,” Kunze said of the employment service. “It sure beats a soup kitchen, and, if they had bought it properly, then there would be nothing we could do about it.”

Janet Sucro, founder and staff director of Faith & Love, previously had said light breakfasts and dinners would be served from the firehouse, and that up to 24 persons might be housed there nightly.

But Eckert and Regin said on Monday that, given budgetary constraints and the lack of a kitchen to prepare large meals, the firehouse initially would only be used for employment counseling and a job referral service.

Eventually, they said, several houses behind the fire station might be purchased for housing if enough money is raised.

The organization hopes to raise $400,000 to buy and convert the facility.