Preschool Eviction: Sour Time

For years it has been a quiet symbol of coexistence: Johnson Chapel African Methodist Episcopal Church, once the anchor of a black neighborhood in Santa Ana, stayed after black residents moved out and Latinos moved in. The church and an African American nonprofit organization reached out with a preschool program on which local parents have come to depend.

But many parents who learned this week that the Head Start preschool is being closed fear the era of interethnic cooperation is over. The church’s board is evicting the nonprofit group--whose leaders include some members of the church--in a dispute over money, the church’s use of the building after hours and other lease terms.

A Superior Court judge Wednesday affirmed the church’s right to evict the school, which must be out by Dec. 1.

Some of the parents wept Thursday as they heard the Alta Manning, executive director of the Council of Affiliated Negro Organizations, or CANO, explain why she has to close a school that offers hot meals and free classes and is walking distance from their homes. Others lamented that their young children are the only losers.

“The children are going to be very affected by the change,” said Obdulia Tavira, whose 4-year-old daughter attends the afternoon session. “I’m very happy with the teachers here. It’s very upsetting. I had no idea anything like this was happening. The only ones who will suffer are our children.”

The church’s pastor, the Rev. Timothy E. Tyler, vowed Friday that Johnson Chapel will not abandon the Latino community that surrounds his church. All but four of the preschool’s 148 children are Latino.

“We have not lost our commitment to this community and to its kids,” Tyler said. “It’s the grown folks who aren’t acting right. We have not lost that passion. We are not turning our backs on the Latino community.”

The preschool, operated by CANO, has not always served Latinos. During the 1960s and 1970s, southwest Santa Ana was the cultural hub for Orange County’s segregated African American community. At the heart of the enclave, on the corner of Bristol Street and West 2nd Street, was Johnson Chapel.

By the mid-1970s, after federal law prohibited landlords from discriminating against buyers or renters on the basis of race, the flight of African Americans from ghettos to other neighborhoods began, Cal State Fullerton history professor Lawrence de Graaf said. At the same time, Santa Ana was becoming a mecca for Mexican immigrants.

“Those were the two incentives for the African Americans to move out,” de Graaf said. “But this doesn’t happen overnight. We don’t see the neighborhood totally change until the mid-’80s. What’s interesting is the long lag between the actual moving of black families out of these areas and the realization by churches that their congregations were gone.”

Tyler, 35, came to Johnson Chapel in 1995 from a Kansas City AME church after its pastor died. It wasn’t long before Tyler decided a Latino ministry was needed at his church.

With the help of CANO board members and workers, Tyler completed his doctoral dissertation at United Theological Seminary in Dayton, Ohio, on that topic. In 1997, Johnson Chapel began offering a Spanish language service. About 50 Latinos attend it on Sundays, Tyler said.

“The church is supposed to minister not only to those who drive by but to those who walk by,” Tyler said. “As pastor of this church, I believe I am to go into all of the world, not just the world that looks like us and talks like us.”

Evelyn Rodriguez, a CANO family services advocate, was a member of Johnson Chapel until the tensions between her church and her employer mounted. Visibly distraught after she explained to a group of parents that the school is being evicted, Rodriguez expressed disappointment in the pastor she had grown to trust.

“I feel that he was just using us to get his doctorate,” Rodriguez said. “Now that he’s got it, he doesn’t care about Hispanic people. The ones who are going to pay the consequences are the children.”

On Friday, Manning and CANO board members were shopping for a new location for their school. In the meantime, CANO will offer an afternoon preschool session at its other Head Start school in Santa Ana. Because most of the parents do not own cars, the children will ride a bus three miles to the school, at 1745 N. Grand Ave.

“My daughter will not be able to go to school during those hours because I work at night,” said Abelardo Martinez, who broke down after he heard the school was closing. “My daughter has changed so much since she started going to this school. She wasn’t very social; she wouldn’t talk much. Now, she’s the one that’s pushing me to bring her to school.”

Tyler and his board first approached CANO about a new lease in April 1998. The organization had been renting the building and using the playground and parking lots since 1984 for $1,326 a month. In turn, the church uses the school building at night and on weekends for Sunday school, community meetings and other functions.

Johnson Chapel wanted to raise the rent to $5,000 a month. CANO officials, who say church activities in their classrooms often destroyed supplies and equipment, wanted to close the building to the church. No agreement was ever reached.

In September, CANO filed a lawsuit in Superior Court alleging that Tyler and the church breached the lease and defamed the organization, among other claims. Johnson Chapel filed its eviction notice that month.

“We started negotiating with them two years ago,” said Bryant Calloway, a church trustee. “We have another program interested in renting the building. We have put them off because we wanted CANO to stay.”

Community Day Nursery, a nonprofit organization that operates two preschools in Garden Grove and Irvine, has approached the church about moving into the building in February, director Sue Puisis said. The program, designed for single parents and low-income families, calculates tuition costs based on gross monthly income.

“God did not call me to be a Realtor, lawyer or attorney,” Tyler said. “My calling is to be a pastor in a community that serves everybody. It’s very painful and stressful when you have to do something you don’t want to do. This is not a power trip. I don’t feel powerful in the least bit. In fact, I have felt quite powerless.”