Blaze Destroys Oxnard Rescue Mission : Urban haven: Fifty-five men are left homeless by fire hours after the 68-bed dormitory in a converted Buddhist temple celebrates its 20th anniversary.

The Oxnard Rescue Mission--which has fed, housed and clothed homeless men since 1972--was destroyed by fire early Sunday, hours after celebrating its 20th anniversary.

The fire left 55 men homeless again and turned the inside of the 68-bed dormitory at 563 E. 6th St. into a smoldering pile of rubble and ashes. No one was injured.

“I used to sleep in a park on Date Street,” said Danny Thompson, 27, an unemployed department store clerk, who sat glumly Sunday afternoon in the Oxnard High School gymnasium, where American Red Cross workers set up an emergency shelter. “Now we don’t have anyplace to go. The shelter was our home.”

Although 42 of the men were expected to be lodged Sunday night at the gym, a Red Cross worker said there is no long-term plan for housing them there.

Oxnard firefighters said the cause of the blaze is under investigation. Fire officials on the scene suspect that the 12:40 a.m. fire began in a faulty dryer in the laundry room.

The value of the building and its contents was estimated at about $500,000, officials said.

Battalion Chief Clarence Slayton said firefighters had difficulty controlling the blaze as it raced from the ground-floor laundry room into the walls of the two-story, wooden building and then into the attic. About 10 minutes after the fire was reported by a night watchman, the roof caved in.

The Rescue Mission, which takes in homeless men for up to five consecutive days, lies in the heart one of Oxnard’s grittiest neighborhoods, between railroad tracks and the Oxnard Community Clinic.

Before it opened 20 years ago, the mission was the home of the Oxnard Hongwanji Buddhist Temple.

A group of church leaders bought the land and the building on 6th Street in 1972 with the help of a $35,000 loan from the Union Rescue Mission in Los Angeles and $10,000 in donations from Santa Barbara residents, said the Rev. John Foster of the First Baptist Church in Port Hueneme.

Still funded by donations from churches and private individuals, the mission also offered a gathering place for homeless men, where they could eat regular meals or use the laundry room and showers. The building had just been remodeled to install counseling rooms for alcohol and drug treatment programs, Foster said.

“In all probability, this will be condemned,” he said. “There’s no way of salvaging it.”

On Saturday, operations manager Joe Thomas said, residents and mission workers held a celebration and barbecue marking the Fourth of July and the shelter’s 20th anniversary. Most residents said they were asleep when the fire began.

Ed Seymore, 25, was asleep when he heard screams and smelled smoke. He hobbled out of the burning building on his crutches, leaving his artificial leg behind.

“I walked out on my crutches as fast as I could. Then I stood outside and waited for the engines,” Seymore said Sunday afternoon, still dressed in striped pajamas as he sat in the Oxnard High School gym. “If I’d been in that bed, I wouldn’t be here.”

Although a friend retrieved Seymore’s leg from the building, the waterlogged prosthesis was ripped and damaged beyond repair, he said.

In addition to clothes, the shelter lost sleeping bags and a large supply of toothpaste and soap.

“We had enough toiletries to last for a year. And they were all destroyed,” Thomas said.

At daybreak, residents returned to find only the skeleton of the building that they had temporarily called home.

Some defied firefighters’ warnings to stay out of the building to pick through the ashes for the few belongings left unscorched by the blaze.

One man darted under a Fire Department tape to retrieve a scorched file folder of mail, identification cards and Medi-Cal documents that he said he needed to get another job. A firefighter also salvaged a pair of dentures that the 40-year-old man had left behind when he fled the burning building.

“I can’t say it was like living at the Hilton,” said the man, who would identify himself only as Pete. “But I spent six weeks living in my car and drinking continuously. I was afraid if I was out there long enough, I would be dead.”

No one had come to retrieve the items at the side of bunk bed No. 44: a Bible, three neatly pressed pairs of slacks, two shirts and a walking cane.

Mike Goth, acting director for Red Cross’ emergency services, said his agency will meet today with city officials in an effort to find temporary shelter for the men made homeless by the fire. He said the high school gym could not be used to house the homeless for more than a few days.

Homelessness “is a county problem. I don’t want to raise false hopes that this is going to be a long-term solution,” Goth said. “Until we’re able to rebuild the rescue mission, there’s no replacement in the county.”

Rescue mission officials said they do not know what they will do.

“We were in the process of trying to open up a women’s shelter and this is going to set us back,” said Executive Director Jerry Roberg. The three-bedroom dwelling that was slated to house women in September could house up to a dozen of the displaced male residents. “There are going to be some people out on the streets again,” Roberg said.

Other rescue mission officials said they plan to begin gathering contributions for a new building as soon as possible. A mission committee is expected to meet this week to accelerate plans for a fund-raising drive.

“Where are we going to get the money to rebuild this?” asked Dwane Chapman, a vice president of the shelter’s board of directors, as he wandered through the rubble. “I just talked to a guy out there who said, ‘I was homeless. Now I’m more homeless than I was before.’ ”