Shop That Helps Homeless Faces Eviction

Large pictures tacked to the walls of a Diamond Bar storefront showing children asleep on sidewalks are stark reminders of homelessness.

Not that any reminders will be needed after this week for operators of the tiny shop, which raises money to help abandoned children in Romania.

The Street Children’s Relief Thrift Shop will be homeless itself starting Saturday, when the new owners of a shopping center that has donated space to the store evict the volunteer workers and their stock of hand-me-down merchandise.

Open Saturdays since 1994, the tiny shop has raised about $1,000 a month to help finance food and shelter for abandoned children who roam the streets of Bucharest.

It is the only thrift store in Diamond Bar, a residential city 25 miles southeast of downtown Los Angeles that boasts $1-million gated estates across the street from the shopping center.

Owners of the Country Hills Towne Center say they need the thrift shop’s 1,600-square-foot space.

But store supporters--who point out that 12 neighboring storefronts in the shopping center are vacant--suggest that the real reason for the eviction is a feeling that a secondhand store doesn’t fit in upscale Diamond Bar.

“It’s possible that a thrift shop projects the wrong image,” said longtime store volunteer Gwendolyn Brand, a Diamond Bar resident.

Added City Councilman Gary Werner: “A thrift shop may not be conducive to the kind of image the shopping center owner wants to establish.”

Shopping center property manager Debbie Thornton denied that the ouster has anything to do with the atmosphere that the retail complex is trying to achieve. Her company, M & H Property Management, purchased the center in late 1995.

“Their operation is pretty clean inside. That wasn’t a problem,” Thornton said Tuesday. “It’s just impacting our ability to lease the space. We have prospective tenants interested in the space.”

Thornton said it will not be possible to move the thrift shop into any of her shopping center’s vacant storefronts.

Volunteer thrift shop manager Ingrid Miller said the store’s fixtures will be put in storage this weekend if a new location isn’t found. Its stock of clothing and used merchandise will be given to Los Angeles-area missions.

Miller said she and her half-dozen store volunteers would prefer to stay in Diamond Bar, where local residents donate high-quality merchandise and there is no thrift shop competition. They are looking for donated space in San Dimas, Walnut, Chino Hills, LaVerne or Brea as a fallback position, she said.

“We’ve worked hard. Being open just one day a week, we’ve sold a lot of $3-a-pair jeans and $1.25 shirts to make the money we’ve made for the Romanian kids,” said Miller, an interior decorator who has four grown children.

“When you hear about these kids living in sewers and sleeping in cardboard boxes, it tugs at your heart. We started off simply collecting clothing to send to kids over there. But when we started getting donations of perfectly good household items, we decided to sell them and send the money.”

The cash is funneled through a nonprofit Scotts Valley, Calif., group called Children’s Relief Network. It is run by Lyle and Dorene Thomson, whose 34-year-old daughter, Angie Thomson, operates Romanian children’s shelters on an $18,000-a-month budget.

On Tuesday, Angie Thomson was stunned to learn of the thrift shop’s closing.

“This is a huge loss,” she said from Bucharest, where she runs a 40-bed boy’s shelter, a 25-space girl’s shelter and a drop-in center where children get meals and showers.

“That’s probably our biggest contribution source. This is a big blow.”

An estimated 4,000 homeless children roam Bucharest’s streets, a legacy of the 35-year rule of communist dictator Nicolae Ceausescu, who was overthrown and executed in 1989. During his reign, Ceausescu outlawed birth control and abortions and rewarded large families. Large numbers of unwanted and neglected children were the result.

Back at Diamond Bar’s City Hall, Werner said it is clear that Romanian children still need help.

And, he said, “I still think there’s room for a thrift shop in Diamond Bar.”