Minister Gets New Ally in Aiding Homeless

A Southern Baptist minister convicted of illegally housing the homeless said Thursday that he is trying to avoid running afoul of the law again by working with a Los Angeles-based group that converts blighted motels into shelters.

Wiley S. Drake, who was convicted last month on four misdemeanor counts of violating zoning laws, has been named to the board of directors of Shelter First Inc., a 3-month-old agency that has turned two South-Central Los Angeles motels into shelters for about 15 families.

Drake said Thursday that he hopes to work with Shelter First to find a motel site in Orange County that can be used to provide sleeping quarters and other services.

“Their ideas and our ideas are basically the same,” Drake said of the group.

“We want to be a transitional place for people to come, primarily to find work, find medical aid, get spiritual counsel, then get back to the work force.”

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Despite the alliance, Drake insisted that he will continue to defy city zoning laws and not evict the homeless from his church grounds before they have someplace else to go.

But Drake also struck a conciliatory tone Thursday. He said that after his Aug. 25 sentencing hearing, he intends to seek city approval for a 52-bed shelter on his church grounds.

For about three years, Drake, 53, has been aiding the homeless with food, shelter and job counseling at the First Southern Baptist Church of Buena Park on Western Avenue.

Negotiations for Drake’s shelter plans broke down last spring when a yearlong feud between his church and the city moved to the courts.

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“I know the city [officials] are having their party because they ‘won’ the case, but they haven’t won yet,” said the minister, who is scheduled to be in Los Angeles today to meet with leaders of other nonprofit organizations and several members of Congress.

The round-table discussion will focus on the obstacles that groups face as they serve the community, organizers said.

Buena Park officials said they welcome the chance to work with Drake.

Gregory P. Palmer, the city’s prosecutor in the case, said that he has had no official notification of Drake’s plans, but that the idea would probably be approved if Drake would immediately start obeying city laws.

“I do not know whether it’s workable or not,” Palmer said. “But any plan that has a goal of complying with the law, we will look at it and look at it and try to get there.”

One potential hitch in plans to convert an undetermined motel site in Orange County into a shelter for the homeless is money, said Charlene Gowers, executive director of Shelter First, a nonprofit organization that she said depends entirely on private donations.

“Getting it started is not difficult. It’s finding the money that’s difficult,” Gowers said. “We’re really operating on a shoestring now.”

Drake conceded that he and the city still have a way to go before their problems are resolved.

“This is not a panacea,” he said of his new plan. “This is one solution. It’s a place to start.”