Neighbors Mobilize Against Homeless Camp

BUENA PARK —  A minister in a long-running feud with city officials over his church’s practice of letting the homeless camp on the grounds now faces a new challenge from neighbors who say the area has become unsightly and unsafe.

Homeowners say they are organizing and will go to next week’s City Council meeting to protest the Rev. Wiley S. Drake’s plan to build a homeless shelter at First Southern Baptist Church, where neighbors say 70 to 80 people are now camped.

“All you have to do is drive in that direction and it scares you,” said Glen Tressler, who lives near the church. “It’s just a hobo jungle. They’re lined in the streets with their tents and boxes. It’s a blight.”

Drake was to have been arraigned Monday on criminal misdemeanor charges after city officials said he did not fulfill all terms of an order either to close the homeless camp or hire security guards to police it, but the hearing was postponed until Jan. 24.

Deputy City Prosecutor Gregory P. Palmer filed a complaint Thursday in Orange County Municipal Court alleging that most of the guards Drake had hired were homeless people who had gone through a one-day training course at a security firm.

Drake, who says he has a mission to help the poor, has not been arrested. If convicted of the charges against him, however, he faces a fine of up to $1,000 and six months in jail. Palmer reiterated Monday that the city would not seek jail time.

As Drake waited in a hallway Monday for his court hearing, he speculated on how the Christmas story would have unfolded if it happened here and now.

“If Mary and Joseph had come to Buena Park, they would have been arrested and had charges filed against them,” Drake said. “When Mary and Joseph were in the manger, there were no city laws, no codes.”

Neighbors say they can sympathize with Drake’s goal of helping the destitute, but they fear that the situation has gone beyond his control.

Russell Miller, a member of the church, said he was distressed at a Neighborhood Watch meeting earlier this month to hear reports of homeless people urinating in public, wandering into backyards to wash with gardening hoses and frightening customers at nearby businesses.

He and other neighbors held their first meeting last week to unite in protest of the church’s plans to build the permanent shelter that would meet municipal codes and settle Drake’s dispute with the city.

Homeowners say they will fight that plan when it goes to the city Planning Commission early next year.

“What we have difficulty with is the sheer number that is there now and that will continue to grow,” Miller said of the homeless population. “If you’re going to have a shelter and advertise it, directly or indirectly, . . . you are going to become a magnet.”

Drake and other church workers said they have contingency plans for any overflow of homeless people from the shelter, with church member families on call and hotel rooms arranged for.

But residents say they fear that the neighborhood will be blighted and that children will not be able to walk safely to nearby shops.

“They’ve got 70 or 80 people there now standing in the rain with no shelter,” resident James Dow said. “What will they do when he has a shelter with 57 beds and you have 100 people standing in line?”