Needs of City vs. Homeless Come to Trial

A Buena Park city prosecutor told a jury in opening arguments Monday that the Rev. Wiley S. Drake repeatedly violated zoning laws by allowing homeless people to live on church grounds, even after firefighters and police pointed out the safety hazards.

But the defense portrayed city officials as mean-spirited bureaucrats who are selectively enforcing building codes in an effort to quash a religious leader’s campaign to help the poor.

Between June 1996 and January 1997, city employees inspecting the First Southern Baptist Church in Buena Park found conditions such as loose wiring, an outdoor refrigerator with a cord running inside, and food and clothing stored in a makeshift patio enclosure, assistant city prosecutor Gregory Palmer told the jury Monday in Municipal Court in Fullerton.

Although the city sent dozens of letters to the church, the violations continued, leaving authorities with no choice but to file criminal charges against the church, Drake and another church board member, Vondel Mumaw, Palmer said. Nine misdemeanor charges originally were filed, but four were later dropped.

Photos of tents with piles of clothing, rolled-up bedding and other personal belongings were shown to jurors. Witnesses said the chain-link fence around the church has been used as a clothing line.

“This case is not about whether the homeless people need help,” Palmer said. “It’s about the rights of the community.”

Outside the courtroom, Palmer added: “Go to any other church and ask, ‘Why don’t you do what Wiley’s doing?’ and you know what they’ll tell you? That they can’t because it’s against the law.”

But the defense attorney, Jon Alexander, argued that the not-in-my-backyard syndrome and selective law enforcement had prompted the case.

In its own surveillance of the neighborhood, the defense found several recreational vehicles in a commercial park similar to the ones parked at the church belonging to homeless people, Alexander said.

“Things that the church is charged with, you will see within a block of the church,” he said.

Alexander said he once was homeless for two months after he lost his job as a commercial fisherman in North Carolina and was fed and housed at a local restaurant. Helping homeless people, he argued, far outweighs minor building code violations.

“The evidence will show that Pastor Wiley Drake is guilty of providing emergency aid to a class of people that the city of Buena Park does not want to see, hear or smell,” Alexander said. “It would be much more criminal, so to speak, to enforce the law.”

Located at Western Avenue and Melrose Street, the 150-member church continues to be home to many, including a former attorney who lost his job and a 67-year-old cancer patient who has nowhere else to go, Alexander said.

The church’s effort to house the homeless began several years ago when a homeless man asked Drake for food and shelter, Alexander said. The pastor agreed, and since then, the church has helped many individuals and families begin new lives, including Lorraine Taylor, a woman who finished technical school while living on church grounds and is expected to testify later this month.

In 1995, Alexander said, the church provided food and temporary shelter to victims of a flood.

“They were cold. They were hungry. They were homeless, at least for a short period, just like the people who live there now,” Alexander said. The city gave the church a plaque for that effort, he said.