Minister’s Grateful Guests Are a Mixed Lot

“Pray for Our Nation” reads the cracked white sign in front of First Southern Baptist Church.

Inside, “One-Eyed Mike” Turner, 46, is making sure the pizza gets out of the church ovens on time.

“Don’t let ‘em burn. Those animals out there will be all over ya!” he hollers good-naturedly, referring to the three dozen homeless men and women gathered in parking lot.

“They’re ‘aesthetically imperfect,’ so Pizza Hut donates them to us,” Turner explains, as a 97-year-old military veteran, a pregnant woman and a man who says he’s dying of cancer grab slices.

“We’re aesthetically imperfect too, so it works out kind of nice,” says Marlene Taylor, 46.

Taylor and the others in this collection of odd souls may lose their home because a jury ruled on Monday that the Rev. Wiley Drake broke the law by letting them sleep on church grounds, and a judge Tuesday ordered them out.

Every one sleeping in the dilapidated vans, the run-down campers or in the “patio”--the cinder block building out back where 22 cots are neatly lined up--has a story. And they worry they’ll end up back under the freeways, in the parks or next to dumpsters.

A year ago, Taylor was a battered woman with broken bones. She slept in fear in Peak Park as her blankets, her clothes and everything she owned was stolen. Now, she said, she is working in a warehouse and makes enough to rent a room. She owes it all to Drake and sanctuary he gave her at the church, she said.

“He gave me my faith back,” she said. “I’m not terrified to talk to humanity anymore.”

Wayne Campbell, who says he is a manic depressive and has asthma, left New Hampshire a year ago after hearing that university hospitals in Southern California might be able to help him.

“I had a bad panic attack and I just ran. I jumped in the car and said, ‘Please get me to Cal,’ ” he recalled. After being arrested and moved along by Los Angeles police more times than he can remember, Williams heard Drake on the radio. He was so withdrawn when he arrived at the church he barely talked. Drake welcomed him, and church personnel helped him get government assistance. Now he chatters happily with visitors.

A man who identifies himself only as David Jr. points to a scar on his neck, explaining that he tried to hang himself in the Orange County Jail in the 1970s. “They say I’m mentally ill, ma’am,” he says. “Personally, I think everyone in America is mentally ill.”

Perhaps everyone’s favorite is Cynthia Lee, seven months pregnant with twin boys. Kicked out of her home by relatives five months ago, she learned about the church “from a gentleman in the Laundromat who I guessed was homeless.”

Cynthia goes to sleep on her cot in the patio at 9 p.m. She wakes at 3:45 to catch a 5 a.m. bus to her job at a video factory in Anaheim Hills.

“This is my family, because they put up with me and like it, no matter how weird I am,” she laughs, gesturing to the men and women around her.

“She’s not a sniveler,” says Pete Maniaci, 65, who says he is dying of prostate cancer. He sleeps in his 1972 Chevrolet motor home, which doesn’t run. He buys his own food but depends on the other homeless people at the church for friendship.

Neighbors have mixed feelings.

“I’m sorry they’re there, but I’m also sorry they’re homeless. Those who have never been there have no idea what it’s like, and others tend to forget,” said James George, treasurer of Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks Lodge 2046, down the street from the church.

“It’s disgusting,” said Phil Baron, who lives in the neat, tree-lined apartment complex at the other end of the block. “They have no business being there. They put down their little blankets and call it home. They’re homeless because they want to be.”

--- UNPUBLISHED NOTE --- This story has been edited to reflect a correction to the original published text. Reverend Drake’s first name was misspelled. The correct spelling is Wiley, not Wylie. --- END NOTE ---