Maligned Abuse Shelter Ready to Take In Families

The Eli Home for abused and neglected children and their mothers has faced fierce opposition from nearby residents over the past three years, but the unrelenting controversy has not stopped the shelter from accepting its first families this week.

“It’s been a long project,” said shelter founder Lorri Galloway. “Something that should not have taken so long.”

While still seeking city approvals to open, Galloway and her organization endured legal feuds with residents, mounting lawyer bills, financial troubles and an investigation into the nonprofit’s finances by the state attorney general’s office, which is still ongoing.

Slander lawsuits filed by Eli Home against residents who spoke out in opposition to the shelter have been dismissed. Eli Home was ordered to pay attorney and court costs for the defendants. Most of the legal bills, which one board member said topped $48,000, have been paid with private money.

But nearby resident and shelter opponent Jeannie Averill is still not satisfied.

“I predict a disaster,” she said. “It’s a terrible location for a shelter because of the logistics. They’re going to put all these children on a busy thoroughfare on one side and a narrow private road on the other side.”

Averill was named in the slander lawsuit and has been paid about $18,000 for her legal bills. She said justice prevailed: “I’ve never slandered the Eli Home. I have only spoken the truth, and, if Lorri Galloway doesn’t like the truth, she should change her ways.”

While residents have long fought the opening of the shelter and charged that their neighborhood is not an appropriate location, Galloway said Eli Home’s resilience is because of the carpenters, women’s club members and other community members who have supported the project.

Vickie Dedic, a five-year volunteer whose husband’s Anaheim company donated the hunting lodge-themed furnishings for the family room, is excited to see the shelter finally open.

“We’ve spent enough time dwelling on negative publicity and the neighbors,” she said. “It’s time to put that aside and get back to helping some of these people.”

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Scores of donations and volunteer labor helped to renovate the abandoned three-story structure and turn it into an upscale seven-bedroom home with formal living room, dining area, marble fireplaces and spacious kitchen with dual dishwashers, double sinks and tile counter tops.

“We’re so grateful for the massive amounts of community support,” Galloway said. “By looking at the project, you would know just how much people gave as far as time and material.”

The range of support has included help from off-duty firefighters who built a redwood yard fence and assisted with drywall work. A women’s club donated beds and furnishings for a bedroom, and another women’s group bought items for a bathroom that now sports a cat motif. Church members donated money to furnish the formal living room--to be used as a counseling area--with elegant sofa beds and a Matisse reproduction that hangs above the mantle.

Close to $300,000 in loans, grants and donations helped to pay for the home’s remodeling, Galloway said. In 1994, the charity bought the rundown property in the affluent neighborhood for $125,000.

Dr. Richard McFarland, an Eli Home board member since 1986, said he also supports the charity simply because Galloway, and her husband, Michael, “have sacrificed a lot financially and personally to do something about child abuse in Orange County.”

Eli Home will offer emergency shelter for up to 45 days for as many as 22 people, which would include mothers and their children up to 12 years old. A resident manager and five staff members will cover shifts around the clock. Families pay a sliding fee of $350 or less per stay--based on ability to pay--and that includes food, counseling and educational materials.

Lorri Galloway said families’ ability to pay is not a determining factor to receive help: “For us, the bottom line is how serious the case is and how serious they are to rehabilitate their lives.”

Services aimed at child-abuse prevention include counseling and educational programs such as parenting and self-esteem classes. Community volunteers to assist with programs are also needed.

McFarland said the main goal is to reunite families if possible, and if not, to send mothers and their children back into the community better able to cope with abusive situations.

Though Eli Home will start providing services to families, financial struggles linger. The shelter is dependent on private donations to pay for operating costs.

The city has granted Eli Home a 30-day temporary occupancy permit that allows shelter families to move in, but it expires May 3 and must be renewed. A final occupancy permit has not been issued because the shelter has not complied with fencing and landscaping conditions.

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A temporary occupancy permit “is intended to allow time for them to complete items that are not life-safety type issues,” said Anaheim Deputy Planning Director Mary R. McCloskey.

Gene Secrest, a neighbor, objects to the shelter taking in families without receiving final clearance from the city.

“It’s one more indication that the city is willing to look the other way in enforcing their own rules and regulations as well as the terms and conditions of their conditional-use permit,” he said.

Nevertheless, Lorri Galloway said the shelter intends to comply with outstanding conditions of approval and looks forward to opening Eli Home.

“We’ve got families to help, families to house and lives to change.”