LAGUNA BEACH : Sheltering CSP From Mortgage

After two years of lean budgets and belt-tightening, a youth shelter held a mortgage-burning ceremony Tuesday to commemorate the final payment on a house where 300 youngsters and their families go for help each year.

About 75 guests--including city officials, shelter volunteers, residents and schoolchildren--gathered during the afternoon at the CSP Youth Shelter, a two-story house on a quiet residential neighborhood near the ocean. County Supervisor Thomas F. Riley torched a copy of a certificate, indicating that the mortgage, which the city agreed to pay off after pleas from shelter officials, is paid in full.

“This is a happy day,” program director Judy Friesen said. “It’s a great day.”

After losing $158,000 in state funding over two years, the six-bed shelter was forced to cut its full-time staff from six members to four and to rely heavily on volunteers, Friesen said. The burden was somewhat eased, however, when shelter workers approached the City Council in August for help.

Declaring that “there is nothing finer we do as a city than to provide some help for homeless young people,” the council agreed to pay off the balance of the $51,000 mortgage. The last payment was made two weeks ago, Friesen said.

Members of the shelter’s advisory board praised the City Council on Tuesday for coming to the shelter’s rescue.

“Our last bit of really good luck was having the city of Laguna Beach really come through for us,” board member Billie Hansen said.

Volunteer support has allowed the shelter to continue providing the same level of service during financially troubled times, she said. Volunteers help with day-to-day operations at the shelter, supervise group activities and answer the five telephone lines.

“This current fiscal year is our most difficult financial year because of the total amount of money we’ve lost,” she said. “We are doing just a whole lot more fund raising.”

The $600-per-month mortgage payment will now go toward other basic needs, Friesen said, including paying for groceries and for utility and telephone bills.

The shelter, which opened in 1980, is under the umbrella of Community Service Programs, along with programs dealing with sexual assault victims, substance abuse, child abuse and others. It offers crisis intervention and home care for troubled youths ages 11 to 17. Both parents and teens are counseled. The goal is to provide youth and their parents with better coping skills so families can be reunited, Friesen said.