Food Coalition Becomes Homeless

A hundred or more line up daily for the promise of a free, hot meal and a friendly smile, a would-be screenwriter, an out-of-work actor, a handyman from Russia among them.

They yearn for a sated feeling without having to answer questions on why they ended up on the streets or listen to advice on how they might otherwise be helped.

“If I don’t come here, I’m starving,” said James Rogers, 69, his eyes locking on the steaming trays of casserole being unloaded from the truck. “I just want to eat.”

Each evening for the past 12 years, Ted Landreth, his wife, Penny, and dozens of other volunteers have provided anonymous respite to the homeless and poor in West Hollywood. Their efforts have often been unwelcome to area home and business owners, who shunned vagrants on their doorsteps and drove the group away from its first gathering spot at Plummer Park in 1990.

Soon thereafter, the Landreths came up with what seemed the perfect solution: Prepare the five-course dinner in an empty room tucked away behind the historic Farmers Market, then deliver the food by truck to an industrial corner at Sycamore Avenue and Romaine Street, where the hungry could gather for a quiet meal with less fear of reprisal from angry neighbors.

But Saturday, the donated space was gone, and the Greater West Hollywood Food Coalition once again had to pack up its donated goods and appliances, this time with no alternative kitchen in sight.

“We’ll keep serving, even if we have to revert to peanut butter sandwiches like we did when we first started,” Ted Landreth vowed. Still, being evicted again “is a bit demoralizing.”

Commerce is forcing the change this time. Some of the buildings at the market, including the one containing the donated space used by the coalition, are to be razed to make room for a $100-million shopping and entertainment complex being built by Caruso Affiliated Holdings.

Paying tenants in those buildings are also being moved, and everyone was told of the plan long before the 60-day eviction notice was served, said Mark Panatier, vice president for development and marketing at A.F. Gilmore Co., which owns and operates the market. “This wasn’t a surprise.”

Some of the tenants helped pay for a new kitchen area they could use at the market’s grocery store, he said.

But the coalition, whose annual budget of between $30,000 and $40,000 mainly comes from private donations, could not afford to take part in new construction, Landreth said.

City Councilman Mike Feuer said Friday he has tried to help relocate the coalition’s kitchen, but nothing has materialized. “I was not aware they had to move imminently,” he said, adding that he would step up efforts to help. The City Council has not yet held a hearing on razing the Farmers Market structures, he added.

Coalition volunteers remained cautiously optimistic, however. In the past, there’s always been a last-minute reprieve, they said.

Even with the ouster from Plummer Park, the loss of funding from West Hollywood and the 1990 collapse of Drexel Burnham Lambert, which ended a daily donation of $500 in gourmet food, something always seemed to work out, the volunteers said.

Even their market tenure was in jeopardy 18 months into their stay there. At the last moment, they were able to trade the 300-square-foot space they were losing to a paying tenant for the free, 800-square-foot multi-room unit they left Saturday.

“Something’s going to happen,” said Gary Ereckson, the volunteer vice president. “The Lord’s going to provide for us.”

Landreth said he doesn’t blame the market for the latest crisis, and Panatier was equally laudatory.

“They kept their spaces clean, the debris picked up, were courteous and always returned phone calls,” he said.

Coalition volunteers are equally diligent about cleaning up the corner where they feed the hungry every night, sweeping the curb, bagging the empty plates and picking up any loose trash. It’s vital to maintaining cordial community relations, they explained.

Last Tuesday, the crowd they served numbered close to 120. The group always swells toward the end of the month, when their support checks from the government have run out, several of the men in line explained.

The coalition is one of the larger operations among the roughly 400 food pantries and soup kitchens serving the homeless and low-income residents in the Los Angeles area, said Frank Tamborello, of the L.A. Coalition to End Hunger and Homelessness. It is the only one in West Hollywood that offers daily meals, he added.

At least two other such soup kitchens would be needed to meet the demand in that region, he said, and the number of hungry people is likely to grow.

Feeding the poor by itself doesn’t solve the problem, other homeless advocates say. “What I’m trying to encourage [the coalition] and other feeding programs to be part of is a continuum of care, to link them up with programs . . . to transition them off the street and not just give them food,” said Joel Roberts of People Assisting the Homeless, or PATH, in Hollywood.

Sherrie Kay, executive director for the Hunger Task Force of Milwaukee, agreed. Ideally, soup kitchens and pantries should try to spend half of their time feeding the poor and the other half on services that get at the root of the problem, said Kay, a nationally recognized expert on hunger issues. “It’s really hard to do both well, but you really have to if you are going to be an effective advocate for low-income folks.”

But Landreth says his main aim is to offer those who are hungry food without conditions or proselytizing, and his clients, including the Russian handyman, say that’s just fine with them.

“People just need this place,” said Sergio Markov, 36.

The Landreths and a dozen volunteers began the sweaty task of moving out Saturday morning, emptying pantry shelves and wrestling with a large stove and six refrigerators. Later in the afternoon, volunteers would begin preparing a meal of soup and casseroles at the Landreths’ home just blocks away on Genesee Avenue.

The couple do not relish the prospect of working out of their own small kitchen, but said there was too much risk in suspending their work. They feared that people would stop donating food or volunteering if they stopped, even for a short time. “We can do this as long as it doesn’t go on very long. It’s an emergency transition,” Landreth said.

As drivers began shuttling cooking equipment and food to storage units and other charity food programs, one volunteer said she would miss the old kitchen.

Ruby King, 62, of Hollywood, said she has worked at the kitchen for eight years. “I feel kind of sad, but I know we have to move. It was nice here because we had a lot of roomy space. If we move to someplace smaller it’s going to be crowded,” King said.

Correspondent Monte Morin contributed to this story.