Coalition a ‘Connection Center’ for Laguna Fire Victims : Aid: Group offers counseling, clothing and other essentials to those still struggling with devastating loss.

Surrounded by piles of donated supplies at the Laguna Beach fire relief center, John Velasquez stood clutching a box of oatmeal and a sack of pasta to his chest.

About 30 minutes later, he was wrestling with a large box filled with goods, including bathroom tissue, a hair brush and a new sweater. Almost everything he needed.

“I’ll probably have to go to Sav-On for the sponge,” he said.

Velasquez, whose home burned to the ground in the massive Oct. 27 fire, is one of the about 400 survivors who have signed up for support with the Laguna Fire Relief Coalition, a group formed after the blaze that destroyed 366 homes.

Vowing to stick together for as long as needed, the coalition opened its new headquarters recently and soon afterward launched its first project of 1994--distributing identification cards to fire survivors that may help them get discounts from local merchants.

“Once we realized the recovery was going to take more time and mean a lot more effort than feeding people and handing out food in the immediate aftermath, everyone involved realized we better dig in for the long haul,” said Anita Mangels, director of the coalition.

The group is composed of representatives from community, church, business and artist groups that began meeting at Laguna Presbyterian Church two days after the fire.

A study of the devastating 1991 Oakland fire showed the demand for relief services did not peak until about seven months after the disaster, Mangels said.

Coalition secretary Doug Landrum said the Laguna group’s food and supply distribution center in the Boat Canyon shopping center, which now serves as its headquarters, has become a regular stop for fire survivors who need continuing support 2 1/2 months after the fire.

“Some come in daily, others come in every three or four days,” he said. “There are people who just have not gotten to the point where they feel like they can deal with all the issues they’re going to have to deal with to recover their lives after the fire.”

Last month, the center helped distribute Christmas toys and about 90 turkeys, he said.

Velasquez said stopping at the relief center fills a variety of needs for fire survivors like him.

“When you come here there’s a sense of respect and a sense of courtesy. You feel welcome. . . . A lot of it is psychological. Coming here (is) much easier than going to a grocery store.

“It’s not just the material things but the connection,” he added. “It’s become kind of a connection center.”

Also stopping for supplies one day last week were Brenda Kirby and her husband, who lost their Mystic Hills home in the blaze and are renting an apartment in Newport Beach.

“We’ve been down here quite regularly, usually about once a week,” she said. “We’ve been given T-shirts, food, clothing. At Christmas, they gave us turkey and ham. The people have been very generous and very wonderful.”

Coalition board member Joe Orsak, who is also this city’s Chamber of Commerce president, hopes to involve all city businesses in the relief group’s latest project.

“We’ve been soliciting our members and requesting they offer some kind of discount to fire victims if they shop in their stores,” Orsak said. “We will be putting out a flyer to all the businesses asking they do this for our residents and our neighbors.”

Ed Sauls, an environmental consultant who helped found the coalition, said the group’s “unmet needs committee” is evaluating how to help survivors in the future. “We’re going to consider what those needs might be over the next 12 to 24 months and direct the organization to provide those services.”

Coalition members say those who require ongoing help include victims who had no insurance or were underinsured, those who need temporary housing and those struggling to qualify for loans or grants.

“We have close to 400 families and individuals signed up for fire relief,” Mangels said. “They may not need to go into facilities on a frequent basis, but they’re certainly availing themselves of the services on a consistent basis.”

Another part of the relief effort, professional counselors are continuing to staff a hot line for fire survivors. But counselor Judy Albert said calls have dwindled since just before the holidays.

“The ones we get are really worthwhile and needy, but they’re few and far between,” she said. “It’s a proud community, so it’s hard to know if people are just getting good neighborhood support.” The telephone number for both the coalition center and crisis counseling is (714) 376-9288.

The coalition, a nonprofit group which incorporated last month, also has in place a “survivor care program” under which volunteers “adopt” several families or individuals, making sure they know when new help becomes available and are kept abreast of information such as the dates of insurance seminars or deadlines for filing claims.

“We expect that, judging by the Oakland experience, we will probably continue for about two years to provide various kinds of assistance,” Landrum said.

While a federal grant helps provide the crisis counseling, Mangels said the group will hold fund-raisers and solicit grants to help pay for other services, which they estimate will cost about $800,000 in the coming year.

Fire victims can also get help from the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the state’s Office of Emergency Services, which has an office next door to the coalition’s headquarters.

Among the most valuable things Velasquez has collected from the coalition’s center were two philosophy books. Velasquez, a philosophy instructor at Rancho Santiago College in Santa Ana, said he lost all of his books in the fire.

“I discovered one day, ‘I have no books,’ and I felt so impoverished,” he said. “It’s not just food for the body but food for the soul we get from a place like this.”