O.C. Agencies Relieved by Fund News

At Hope House, the news lent a bit of extra cheer to the annual potluck Christmas dinner.

At Phoenix House, a senior counselor could only say, “Whoopee!” There were deep sighs of relief Sunday at relief agencies throughout Orange County as news spread that a council managing Orange County’s dwindled funds had authorized emergency payments to 108 desperate nonprofit groups.

“It’ll help us survive,” said Marc Corradini, executive director of Hope House, a long-term residential drug abuse program with 40 beds in Anaheim.

County Supervisor William G. Steiner said Sunday that nonprofit groups in dire straits will get $2.9 million in emergency aid later this week, payment for services the nonprofit agencies performed before the county declared bankruptcy.

“There are a whole host of organizations and contractors that are an extension of county government, that provide vital services to all kinds of people,” Steiner said. The money will help a vast network of such groups, which help the needy, the addicted and the mentally ill.

By Friday, Steiner said, checks should be delivered to emergency homes for foster children, shelters for battered women and agencies that prevent child abuse. The list is long, full of nonprofit groups that feared the worst.

Corradini, for instance, said Hope House might have folded soon without the $79,000 owed it by the county.

“It was going to be real close,” he said. “We might have been able to live hand-to-mouth. . . . But I didn’t want to be on the short end.”

Despite their personal troubles, residents at the treatment center were distracted by the crisis, Corradini said.

“They know what’s going on and they were reading the papers and asking me, so I pretty much let them know what our status was,” he said.

Corradini said he lived in fear of being forced to turn people away for lack of a few dollars.

“We literally were turning out lights in our therapy room and trying to get food donated, because there’s not much fat in our budget.”

The last-minute reprieve came as Hope House residents were sitting down to a potluck supper.

“Families brought in (food) to celebrate Christmas,” Corradini said. “So (the news) comes at a very nice time.”

Nancy Haden, program director at Costa Mesa’s Heritage House, to which the county owes $39,672, almost burst into song when she heard the county would be able to pay her center.

“Oh, thank God!” she said. “Yeah, we’ve really been sweating it. We were told our fund had been frozen. Oh, wonderful. Oh, that’s so great.”

Haden was spending Sunday afternoon baking Christmas cookies with 16 mothers, four pregnant women and 17 children who live at the center, a drug and alcohol recovery shelter for women and their children.

Together, the women and children were preparing for a Christmas that had been looking bleak because of the county’s sudden financial swoon.

The outlook for the center was so dim before Sunday’s good news, in fact, that Harley-Davidson motorcycle clubs were rallying to collect toys for the children.

“It’s been extremely anxious,” Haden said. “We’ve all been really kind of down over the whole thing. We weren’t sure what was going to happen to us. We were told by our supervisor that funds had been frozen and they were going to do the best they could to keep (our) doors open. This is just great news.”

At Phoenix House, a substance abuse program in Santa Ana, the staff was overwhelmed.

“I can really just say, ‘Whoopee!’ ” said senior counselor Lena Lindsey Stern. “I’m in a very good mood. Very happy.”

Stern said it had been an anxious week, not knowing if the county would be able to pay the $92,034 it owes Phoenix House.

“I was a little worried and frightened,” she said. “I’m glad because we do have a lot of people that need help.”

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Agencies Due Money

Here are some of the nonprofit agencies that Orange County will reimburse for services performed before bankruptcy was declared: Child Guidance Center of Orange County: $205,034 Exchange Club Center for Prevention of Child Abuse: $34,884 Gary Center: $36,055 Visiting Nurses Assn.: $13,892 Orangewood Children’s Home: $48,230 Women’s Transitional Living Center: $17,500 Catholic Charities: $177,442 Hope House: $79,484 Roque Center: $56,479 Heritage House: $39,672 Phoenix House: $92,034 AIDS Services Foundation: $80,143 Vista Pacifica: $77,665 Orange County Youth and Family Services: $222,119 Source: Orange County Supervisor William G. Steiner