Soup’s Back On : ‘Someone Cares’ Kitchen Finds a New Home for Its Mission to Feed the Poor and Homeless

Just hours before the doors at the First United Methodist Church were about to slam shut behind her Friday, Merle Hatleberg found a new home for her soup kitchen.

Beginning Monday, the Someone Cares soup kitchen will continue its mission of feeding the poor and homeless at the Costa Mesa Spanish Seventh-day Adventist church on the west side of town.

“I’m not homeless,” said Hatleberg, ecstatic that a last-ditch effort on Thursday to find a host for the city’s last remaining soup kitchen had paid off. “I am off the street.”

At its final supper at the First United Methodist Church on Friday, Hatleberg smiled as she passed the good news to clients that they would have a place to go for food next week.

“I have been so worried because I really want to feed you guys,” she said. “I didn’t find out until late last night, but we do have a roof over our heads.”

Hatleberg’s announcement was met with applause from grateful clients, who also had been concerned that the soup kitchen would follow its predecessors into oblivion.

“A lot of us were worried about where the next meal would come from,” said Bill Lepper, 27, of Costa Mesa. Lepper and wife, Kim, 30, said the service Hatleberg provides has helped them make ends meet while the couple pieced their lives together after the death of an infant daughter a year ago. After several attempted suicides, Lepper said, he lost his job at a movie theater and has not worked since.

“We pray every night for this place and for Merle,” Lepper said.

Though the mood was celebratory at the soup kitchen Friday, Hatleberg said the scare made her more resolute not to become another casualty of an environment that she believes has become increasingly hostile to her cause.

In the 10 years she has operated the charity in Costa Mesa, Hatleberg said, she has often been criticized by angry neighbors who complained that her work contributed to crime and vagrancy. Other soup kitchens, such as the Share Our Selves organization, ended lunch programs under similar pressure.

So while Hatleberg has taken up quarters at the new location, she will continue to raise money to buy a building of her own, she said.

The Rev. Steve Isenman of the First United Methodist Church, which has housed Someone Cares since 1992, said the church has always supported the activities of the soup kitchen, but admitted that it has received complaints from nearby businesses and residents.

More important, however, church leaders discovered that being charitable came at a price they simply could not afford.

Isenman said the presence of homeless people on church grounds discouraged parishioners from having special events there, draining church coffers.

“Since the soup kitchen has been here, our wedding usage has declined dramatically,” said Isenman, who noted that couples pay $750 to be married at the chapel on 19th Street.

The number of poor people lunching at the church grew from about 100 to 300 a day since the soup kitchen arrived in 1992. As use of the soup kitchen increased, so has the need for maintenance of church lawns and floors in the gymnasium where they eat.

Pastor Donald Cameron of the Seventh-day Adventist Church said his only concern about housing the soup kitchen is his church’s limited space. Unlike the Methodist Church, the Iglesia Cristiana Adventista, as it is also known, does not have a large industrial kitchen, nor does it have a big dining area.

Hatleberg convinced church officials that with some creative use of space, perhaps using the large patio and the parking lot in addition to the small dining room, she will be able to feed nearly 300 hungry visitors every day.

Hatleberg, who is currently paying the Methodist Church $500 per month in rent, said she has not yet worked out a rent agreement with her new landlords.