Closing the Doors

As they have for eight years, hundreds of poor, homeless and elderly people from southeast Los Angeles County stood in line in a dirt parking lot near downtown Bellflower on Wednesday to receive donated food from the Hosanna Chapel food pantry.

But this week, the crowd also received something very unwelcome: word that the pantry’s days are numbered.

The Hosanna Chapel’s Lifeguard Ministry, a food bank that feeds about 3,000 people per week at a former freight yard depot, has been ordered to vacate the property by Feb. 15 to make way for a senior citizens housing project.

“We will be here next week but that will be our last week,” Hosanna Chapel Pastor Jimmy Stakias announced over a bullhorn to about 200 people waiting in line, several of whom were in wheelchairs and some of whom cradled sleeping children.

The announcement drew grumbles and stares of astonishment.

“We are all low-income people and without some help we cannot survive,” Francisco Lopez, a waiter from Long Beach, said as he waited with his wife, Estella, and their two young children to receive bags of fruit, bread, frozen foods, yogurt and vegetables.

Carlos Green, whose young son has cerebral palsy, said families like his can’t always make it through the month on $120 in food stamps. “A lot of us can’t afford what the church is giving out,” he said.

The Metropolitan Transportation Authority, which has leased the vacant depot to the church since 1992, plans to sell the 2.7-acre property to Bellflower for $1,050,000. The City Council is preparing to choose a developer for the proposed subsidized housing project.

Church leaders have unsuccessfully searched for nearly a year for a new pantry location and say they will not give up even if the food bank closes temporarily.

Meanwhile, they accuse Bellflower officials of being callous about the plight of the poor in the area.

“If the city had any brains, they would buy the land, lease it to us and we would continue to feed these people,” said Pastor Gary Ansdell, who heads Hosanna Chapel.

But city officials say the best use of the land at Bellflower Boulevard and Flora Vista Street is not a food pantry.

City Manager Michael Egan said the city is planning to spend federal and local housing funds to buy the property and is prohibited by law from using the land for anything but a housing project.

“We are not a rich city,” he said. “We can’t just come up with $1 million that easily.”

The food pantry began serving about 125 people from the backdoor of the chapel at 16705 Bellflower Blvd. Eventually, word spread about the food giveaway and the numbers grew so large that church leaders created a food bank nearby where the train depot was once located. The pantry uses an old metal warehouse to store its food.

The pantry has operated every Wednesday afternoon. About 120 volunteers take the donated food from crates and trucks and put it in plastic bags. They help carry bags to the cars of handicapped and elderly people.

But Wilbur Smith, 83, who is partially blind, hauled his own groceries away in a shopping cart.

He shrugged when asked how he will cope without the pantry.

“I hate to see it go,” he said. “But I guess I’ll be OK.”

Helen Sander, a widow and former casino worker from Bellflower, said she has relied on the food donations for six months to supplement her retirement benefits.

“The check doesn’t go so far,” she said. “We need this.”

The MTA bought the property as part of a larger purchase of Southern Pacific railroad rights of way and was able to lease the surplus lot to the church at the discounted price of $455 per month, said MTA spokesman Rick Jager.

Last year, church officials said, the pantry distributed about $20 million worth of food. Wholesale packing firms such as Valley Center Packing in San Diego and supermarkets such as Vons and Ralphs have donated truckloads of groceries over the years, Ansdell said.

The brains behind the operation has been Stakias, a former wholesale food distributor who became a pastor in 1980 and began working full time to collect food for the poor.

Through a friend at the Farmer John pork processing plant in Vernon, Stakias got the plant to donate nine truckloads of hams for Thanksgiving last year and six more truckloads for Christmas.

“I’m surprised at the amount of food we give out,” he said.

When the food pantry has more food than it can hand out, it serves as a distribution center to other food pantries and churches, such as the Fred Jordan Mission and the Union Rescue Mission in downtown Los Angeles and the Long Beach Rescue Mission.

The MTA warned church officials last year that it planned to sell the property and has given the food pantry four extensions on its eviction.

The pending eviction has sparked a bitter exchange of charges between the city and the church.

In a letter to Ansdell last week, Egan, Mayor Randy Bomgaars and Councilman John Pratt suggested that Ansdell has not done enough to find a new location.

“We implore you to center your attention on finding a solution and working with local churches and us to get this done,” the letter said.

Ansdell fired back a letter saying: “Your letter gave the impression that we have been nonspecific and indefinite in our goals. We have not!”

Ansdell said he has worked for 11 months to locate another site. But he said most of the parcels he has considered are too expensive.

He said the church is considering several parcels in Bellflower and elsewhere but has yet to find a site that can accommodate the large food distribution operation at a price the church can afford.

“We are planning for the worst and praying for the best,” Ansdell said.