Homeless Group Served Second Eviction : Shelter: Transients recently ousted from camp near freeway are ordered to leave an abandoned fire station.

The trials of a group of homeless people evicted from an encampment beneath the San Diego Freeway last month continued Tuesday when city officials ordered them to vacate an abandoned fire station where they had taken up residence.

“It seems like everywhere you go, they are hounding you and pushing you,” said Frank Murphy, 40, an unemployed apartment maintenance man. “No sooner do I get situated and, bam! I gotta move again.”

Murphy was among the 20 or so transients who had been living in an elaborate encampment built among the thick bushes near the Beach Boulevard exit of the San Diego Freeway in Huntington Beach.

On Monday, the California Department of Transportation razed the encampment, which had been dubbed “Club Homeless” by those who lived there. This climaxed weeks of legal maneuvers, during which residents of the encampment filed legal appeals to halt Caltrans’ removal efforts.

But about a dozen or so of the residents had already moved to the abandoned fire station in the 14000 block of Golden West Street, a few blocks from Westminster High School.

They had been invited to stay there by 32-year-old Chuck Ross, a Riverside resident who said he leases the building from its owner.

“I had been helping them out by the freeway for a few years, hauling their trash and buying them tents,” said Ross. “I almost ended up homeless myself once. You gotta help people.”

Ross said he had hoped to make the 5,200-square-foot building a permanent homeless shelter. But an afternoon visit by a Westminster code enforcement officer effectively put an end to those plans.

Police and city code enforcement officials said they received complaints from neighbors about people coming and going from the building, which they said is uninhabitable.

“We have a problem with people living in buildings that are not safe for occupancy,” said Mike Bouvier, director of building and planning. “That building has been known to be in bad shape for awhile. It needs a lot of work before it’s suitable for any occupancy.”

Although code enforcement officials ordered the group to vacate the property immediately, Westminster City Manager Robert H. Huntley said the homeless will be given some time to try to make other arrangements.

“It is not our intent to throw them out into the street,” he said. “We are attempting to garner as many potential resources as we can and provide housing or shelter referrals. But, we will ultimately have to have them move out.”

For many former “Club Homeless” residents, the old fire station had become a haven--a place to take a shower, shave, receive mail and make telephone calls.

Murphy, who had spent Tuesday picking up job applications, said he was devastated by the news that the group would have to move on.

“It was getting set up like a dorm, a place to settle down at,” he said. “You don’t have to worry about pulling your clothes out of the bushes when you go on a job interview.”