Church Facing Foreclosure Is Gutted by Fire

A storefront church in South Los Angeles, scheduled to be turned over to the mortgage company today, was gutted by a suspicious fire early Tuesday morning.

Fire officials say they are investigating it as an arson.

Damage to the Fort Missionary Fruit of the Holy Spirit Baptist Church at 8714 S. Main St. was about $50,000, city Fire Department spokesman Bob Collis said. The building was worth about $65,000, the attorney for the mortgage company said.

The House of Worship Task Force, a group of arson experts from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms and the FBI that investigates church fires, is interviewing possible witnesses with the help of the Fire Department.

The Rev. Al Cook, pastor of the small church since 1985, said the congregation consisted of about 65 adults. Cook said he had no knowledge of any impending eviction or financial difficulties.

The attorney for the mortgage company, Richard Lefkowitz, said the mortgage has not been paid in more than a year. The church went through a couple of bankruptcies, and eviction and foreclosure notices had been mailed to the church, Lefkowitz said. Last Thursday, a notice ordering the tenants to vacate the property within five days was placed on the door by deputies of the Sheriff’s Department, Lefkowitz said.

Vincent J. Motyl, senior vice president of Pacifica First National, which holds the title on the property, said the Sheriff’s Department was going to carry out the eviction today.

Cook said the church recently opened a community center next door that offered computer classes. The congregation also gave groceries periodically to the needy, he added.

Longtime congregants Evangelist Thomas, 60, and her granddaughter, Shantoure Johnson, 19, of South-Central, said they had no idea their church was in financial trouble. Standing near the foyer, one of the only areas not destroyed in the fire, they said the money raised from their numerous barbecue dinners and carwashes was used mainly for the building’s upkeep and its graffiti-scarred exterior.

Johnson, holding her 15-month-old son, Ivontae Hudson, said she has attended the church since she was 4. She pointed to photographs from last year’s Fourth of July celebration still posted on the bulletin board and picked out various relatives.

“This church is not like most churches where they feed you a bunch of hogwash,” Johnson said. “This is like a place away from home. I never thought anything like this would happen to our church. We didn’t have the best-looking church. No, we didn’t, but it was some place to come to.”