Charities, Worried About Future at Center, Invite Public for a Look

Charities and nonprofit organizations that lease the Rea Community Center, which fear they will have to move by next June, are having an open house Wednesday for the public.

“We want people to come by and see the kind of work we do,” said Merle Hatleberg, founder of the Someone Cares Soup Kitchen.

The city, which has leased the former elementary school from the Newport-Mesa Unified School District for 15 years, subleases it to Someone Cares, the Vantage Foundation, Save Our Youth and other groups. But the city has said it will not renew its current lease when it expires in June 1997.

The tenants’ payments don’t come close to covering the $100,000 the city spends to lease the center each year, Mayor Joe Erickson said.

Furthermore, the school district has said it might someday need to reopen the property as an elementary school.

“One of the things I hope is that the agencies there can lease from the school district,” Erickson said. “I have encouraged them to work directly with the school district.”

The soup kitchen prepares and serves meals to hundreds of homeless people daily at the Rea Community Center.

The public is invited to tour the center and meet the operators of the nonprofit organizations from 10 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. Wednesday.

The Rea Center is at 661 Hamilton St.