City Wrong in Vote Against Eli Home

* Re “Shelter Hopes HUD Probe Will Keep Doors Open,” June 14:

We have always appreciated the fairness that The Times has shown in its reporting of the Eli Home. However, this article left out a very significant fact.

Every one of the complaints lodged against the Eli Home by a few disgruntled neighbors were investigated by the Anaheim Code Enforcement Department or the Anaheim police. No citations were ever issued and no violations were ever substantiated.

Allegations of traffic or parking problems were false and maliciously claimed by opponents who have made it very clear that they believe abused children do not belong in their upscale area of Anaheim Hills.

What is additionally tragic is that three members of the City Council validated these discriminatory beliefs by their votes to close the Eli Home.

LORRI GALLOWAY

Executive director

Eli Home

Orange

* The time has indeed come for an exposure of the defiance of any morality or common sense in Anaheim’s City Council chambers.

For far too long, Mayor Tom Daly’s tyrannical reign has been coupled with moral stagnation and blatant disregard for the constitutional fabric with which our society is woven.

That he would deny abused children any semblance of a caring, familial atmosphere--justified only by gravely erroneous claims of noise and traffic--is not out of character for the mayor and his ilk, City Council members Shirley McCracken, Lou Lopez and the ringmaster, City Atty. Jack White.

The issue is a simple one: The Eli Home provides mothers and their children safety from abusive fathers; it is not the kind of cesspool of drug use and decadence purported by the oligarchy that apparently has weighty influence on Anaheim policy-making.

To deny this shelter’s permit is evil and wrong and forces the abused to turn to self-defeating government programs like welfare, which only perpetuate the problems they are designed to fix.

God bless City Councilmen Tom Tait and Bob Zemel for their efforts. They answer to a higher calling than that of the rich, unfeeling aristocracy to which Daly has cowered.

DELIA RODRIGUEZ

Anaheim

* Recently, while participating in an Eli Home function with the children, a beautiful little girl whispered to one of our firefighters, “My daddy can’t hurt me here.”

These tiny words--innocent and unprovoked--are a testament to the value of Anaheim’s only emergency shelter for abused children and their mothers, the Eli Home.

Statistics from the Orange County Child Abuse Registry reveal that in 1997, there were a reported 36,808 cases of child abuse and neglect in Orange County. Anaheim had the dubious distinction of tying Santa Ana for cities with the most reported cases of child abuse and neglect. There were 6,079 in Anaheim alone. Nearly half of these children were age 7 or younger.

What the statistics don’t reveal is how much torment and pain these children have endured. As firefighters and paramedics we see and know all too well the harsh realities of child abuse.

There is no way to measure or even describe the anguish these children suffer; nothing tugs at our hearts more than a child in pain. The truth is we’ve held these children in our arms, we’ve tried to comfort them, we’ve cried for them. And in the nightmare of the worst abuse possible, we’ve tried to breathe life back into their precious little lungs.

The decision by three of the five Anaheim City Council members is tragic. It is imperative that they clearly consider the potential consequences to these young lives and do what is right.

Equally important is that the entire City Council has an obligation to function soundly, providing leadership and the strength to resolve essential community matters; not confined by the grip of political polarization.

Desperate determined mothers have found safety and solace for their children within the Eli Home. By closing the doors to the Eli Home, these susceptible children will be in peril. To further endanger these fragile children is incomprehensible and unjust, not an option any of us should accept.

RICHARD CHAVEZ

President

Anaheim Firefighters’ Assn.

* I can’t help but wonder if the Anaheim council members who elected to close down the center for abused children on the basis that it robbed the neighborhood of “quality of life” were also part of the North County electorate who voted to impose an international airport on South County neighborhoods.

All Anaheim citizens sensitive enough to be disturbed by a small group of abused children are, I assume, working diligently to oppose the unimaginably greater disruptions that would be inflicted by the El Toro airport conversion. Somehow, though, I doubt they care.

DEE ANNE SANTOS

Tustin