Ousted Sect Awaits Higher Order : Eviction: For 8 years, Set Free Christian Fellowship occupied 17 Anaheim homes to be razed for housing project.

About 150 disciples of the Set Free Christian Fellowship have been asked to move from a cluster of city-owned homes, slated for demolition to make way for new downtown residential development.

The notice, which gives church members until May 31 to vacate 17 homes, effectively ends part of an eight-year agreement between the unconventional ministry led by its biker pastor and the city, which has allowed the church to occupy the homes for nominal rents.

A Set Free official said that although the church knew the agreement was temporary, no definite plans have been made for the adults and children who live there.

“We don’t know what we’re going to do,” church spokeswoman Lois Trader said. “We are totally trusting in the Lord. We don’t put our trust in the city of Anaheim.”

In some cases, Trader said, the church may have to crowd the displaced into other leased housing in the city. The church is also counting on some of its 4,000 local members to volunteer their homes as temporary housing.

“The city has been totally cool about this, but realistically it’s going to take quite a while to find new places for the people,” Trader said. “We’re just trusting in God to work out a situation we hoped that we wouldn’t have to work out.”

Founded in 1982 by Phil Aguilar, a former convict who sometimes cruises downtown streets on a Harley-Davidson, the church devotes a large part of its ministry to people with drug or alcohol addictions.

It has also generated controversy. In recent years, former followers have alleged that the church exercises rigid control over the lives of members, sometimes regulating contact with relatives and others not affiliated with the ministry. Church leaders have denied those allegations.

Mayor Fred Hunter, who leases two of his own central-city homes to the church and occasionally attends worship services at its North Anaheim Boulevard headquarters, said Friday that Set Free officials have been using the city property largely to shelter homeless of its congregation.

Church members have been “excellent caretakers” of his property and the city’s, the mayor said, which would probably have been vandalized if it had remained vacant.

“I don’t know what they are going to do,” Hunter said Friday. “There are quite a few people involved in this situation. I just wish I had more houses to rent to them.”

The mayor said the movement of church members is solely based on the city’s need to proceed with development plans and is in no way tied to past criticisms.

“They do a lot of good things that people don’t see,” the mayor said. “There have been no problems--zip, none--with having them.”

Hunter declined to disclose the terms of his lease agreements with the church, but the city had been renting each house for about $50 per month and requiring occupants to perform routine maintenance.

One of the Set Free residents, Stacy King, 18, shares a four-bedroom home at the corner of Bush Street and Broadway with her two children and with six others. She said she was unaware that the city owned the homes but learned about two weeks ago that she would have to move.

“Set Free has made us fully responsible to take care of ourselves,” King said.

She and her sons had been living at an Anaheim motel before moving to the Set Free-managed home about three months ago. When it closes, she plans to move her family into a local apartment now shared by two women friends who are also church members.

Set Free “gave me a new family, a place to stay and food on the table,” King said.

King, a tattoo visible above one ankle, credited the church with severing her association with “gang bangers” and bringing her “closer to the Lord.”

Many of the homes, including the one sheltering King and her children, are older wood-frame structures badly in need of repair.

Set Free member Robert Holland, 40, said that over the years the church has tried to renovate some of the homes, even while realizing that they would someday have to vacate when the city was prepared to build.

“We all knew this was temporary housing,” Holland said. “We’ve known for quite some time. We’re very thankful to the city for allowing us to stay so long.”

The homes are in the city’s central area, between Lincoln Street and Broadway and just west of East Street. Since 1973, the area has been included in plans for new city housing. A developer has not yet been selected, but city officials said they hope to build 120 to 150 new homes in the 10-acre area.

Elisa Stipkovich, the city’s Redevelopment Agency director, said Anaheim and church officials made their agreement years ago with the stipulation that church members could be required to move on 10 days’ notice.

The church’s main worship center on North Anaheim Boulevard is leased from another owner and will not be touched by the plans.

The redevelopment director said church members have been “good neighbors” during the rent agreements and have protected the property from vandals.

Stipkovich said she believes that Set Free is the only organization that expressed interest in occupying the properties because of the unusual lease terms.

“It was something we would have offered to anyone,” Stipkovich said.