A GRATEFUL RECIPIENT : Down-on-His-Luck Veteran Praises Charity as Lifesaver : Carl Mick and family are living in three-bedroom Tustin home provided by American Veterans Assistance Corp. That’s proof enough for him of its goodwill.

The state attorney general may say it’s a scam, but for Carl Mick, the American Veterans Assistance Corp. is a savior.

Since August, Mick, 51, has lived with his wife, 25-year-old daughter and 9-month-old grandson in the one-story, three-bedroom Tustin home the group operates as a shelter for homeless veterans. For Mick, a Marine Corps veteran, the furnished house with its grassy front and back yards is the best thing that has happened to him since he was fired from his job as an auto service manager three years ago.

“It’s been a lifesaver for us,” he said of the charity the state accused of fraud Thursday. “Otherwise, we’d be out on the street.

“We just live here,” Mick continued. “They do everything else for us.”

The Micks are one of a few dozen homeless veterans the group has helped since it formed in 1988 as Californians for Veterans.

It started with a Santa Ana veterans center that distributed food, blankets and hygiene kits. In 1989, American Veterans leased a house on 17th Street in Santa Ana where up to 10 homeless vets lived at a time until the shelter closed early this year, when the group bought the $185,000 property at 13052 Red Hill Ave., where the Micks now live.

Families and couples rotate through the three-bedroom shelter, where the maximum stay is 120 days.

In addition to the shelter, American Veterans operates the high-profile Veterans Wish Foundation, which grants last wishes to terminally ill veterans and has on its advisory board such television celebrities as Alex Trebek of “Jeopardy!” and Corbin Bernson of “L.A. Law,” former Miss America Lee Meriwether and Buzz Aldrin, the second man to walk on the moon. The Wish Foundation’s national spokesman is Johnny Carson’s longtime TV sidekick, Ed McMahon, whose name and face also adorn the Tustin veterans shelter.

The lawsuit alleges that American Veterans has fraudulently collected more than $4.4 million over the past four years, spending a little over $200,000 on actual charitable activities. The attorney general also claims that the group misrepresented itself in order to join the combined Federal Campaign, through which government employees have charitable donations deducted from their paychecks.

But Carl Mick said he doesn’t care about the lawsuit, because from his perspective American Veterans is the best organization around.

Mick, raised in Ohio, came to California in 1960 as a truck mechanic in the Marine Corps. After six years at Camp Pendleton, he went home, only to return to Orange County with his wife, Pat, and start a career in the auto repair business.

In 1989 he was earning $36,000 a year as a service manager, leasing a home in Mission Viejo and was proud to have just bought his first new car in 18 years. Then, that March, he got fired. Pat Mick lost her $24,000-a-year job in a car dealership soon after, and life started to crumble.

“We lost everything,” Mick recalled.

For three years, the family move from motel to motel as Carl and Pat Mick searched for work. Through the Irvine Temporary Housing agency, they got in touch with American Veterans and its president, Larry Silveira, this summer.

Silveira, whom his clients know as a veteran of the Air Force, visits the shelter every afternoon, and buys groceries, furniture and utilities for the residents. Silveira is listed as a defendant in the lawsuit filed by Atty. Gen. Dan Lungren on Thursday, and that office has described him as the brother-in-law of Mitchell Gold, the alleged mastermind of the charity fraud.

“We don’t pay for anything,” he said, toting 9-month-old Joshua, in group-purchased denim overalls, on his USMC-tattooed shoulder. “We get whatever we want--steak, pork chops, fish, chicken.

“He’s the greatest to us,” Mick said of Silveira, who could not be reached for comment Thursday. “We’re just like one big family.”

A huge American flag waves outside the white-and-blue house. Inside, a fireplace and matching flowered sofas make for a cozy living room, while wood cabinets decorate the well-equipped kitchen. Two of the bedrooms are small, nearly stuffed full with double beds, but the master bedroom is spacious and sports large, mirrored closets along one entire wall. In back there is a small deck with a picnic table.

“It took us three years to find something like this. It’s hard enough for a single person to find shelter, let alone a family,” said Mick, who is still out of work and is dreading the end of the month when his 120 days are up. “It sure beats living in a motel. You get tired of McDonald’s all the time.”