GARDEN GROVE : Mental Health Center Gets Eviction Notice

The City Council has told mental health officials that they must find a new location for a day-care center that serves mentally ill, homeless people or face eviction in three months.

Council members said, however, that they will help the Mental Health Assn. of Orange County find a more suitable location for the center and will waive Planning Department fees associated with moving into new quarters.

Residents living near the center at 10672 Chapman Ave. told the council Tuesday night that they are uneasy about the center’s clients who they said roam the area. Residents also said they feel that their families and homes are being threatened. They said that while they support the mission of the center, they believe that their neighborhood is not the right place for it.

It was largely because of nearly unanimous opposition from residents that the council refused to grant a conditional-use permit that would have allowed the mental health center to continue operating indefinitely at its present site.

John A. Garrett, executive director of the Orange County Mental Health Assn., said after the council’s decision that eviction would be a violation of the federal Disabilities Act and that a lawsuit would be a possibility.

But Robert L. Cohen, executive director of the Orange County Legal Aid Society, said Wednesday that legal action apparently won’t be pursued if new quarters are found and the matter is resolved amicably with the city.

The center has operated on Chapman Avenue since last February. It offers an array of programs to as many as 50 clients, seven days a week from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. Most of the clients are transported by vans from homeless shelters in Orange and Stanton.

The center provides counseling, classes and programs to improve housing and income opportunities. It also offers lunches and shower and laundry services.

The center’s aim is to keep psychiatrically disabled homeless people off the streets, Garrett said.

Garrett told city officials that the center’s clients are schizophrenic or manic depressive, or have severe depressions, but are no more prone to violence than people in general.

There is no more stigmatized population than the mentally ill, he said.

However, Paul Hyde, a resident, said he believes that people who attend the center pose a threat. “We are not without compassion,” he said, “but compassion ends when there is a threat to our families and homes.”

Garrett told officials that his organization has been treated unfairly by the city.

Garrett said an employee in the Planning Department had told him before the center opened in Garden Grove that, “beyond a shadow of doubt,” a conditional-use permit was not required.

But staff members claimed that mental health officials represented the facility not as a day-care center but as an office and counseling center, which would not have required such a permit. The allegation was denied by Garrett.

Garrett also said that his organization has signed a five-year lease with the building’s owner and that it would cost about $35,000 to break terms and find new quarters.

Mayor Frank Kessler said that a new tenant is reportedly willing to move into the center’s location and apparently would take over lease payments from the Mental Health Assn.

The Planning Commission on Oct. 22 unanimously denied a conditional-use permit to operate the center. The Mental Health Assn. appealed, and the City Council unanimously denied the appeal.