ARTICLES
OCTOBER 2001 ARTICLES
Contents © 2001
by Jim Holman.
All rights reserved.
It Makes No Sense -- They Have Toilets Here
Missionaries of Charity Must Leave
By Christopher Zehnder
"Somebody might want to kick the brothers out, but I don't think anyone would want to kick Mother out," noted Brother Joseph McLachlan of the Missionaries of Charity Brothers, the male branch of the order started by Mother Teresa of Calcutta. For nine years, the Missionaries of Charity have worked at 1345 Alvarado Terrace, running a ministry for primarily homeless men, from a beautiful Spanish revival-style house. Over the past couple years, this ministry, named Nuestro Hogar ("Our Home"), has become the lodestone for criticism from Alvarado Terrace residents who claim that it brings undesirable elements to their neighborhood. Resident complaints have come before the Los Angeles Central Planning Commission who have ordered Nuestro Hogar out of Alvarado Terrace.
"It was July of 1992 when we moved into the house, and that was a few months after the riots," said Brother Joseph McLachlan in his Scottish brogue. Alvarado Terrace is a small street forming the base of a triangle whose legs are Pico Boulevard and Alvarado Street. "We're only a block and a half from Pico and Alvarado," said Brother Joseph, "and those four corners, during the riots, were damaged by fire. Some buildings were completely destroyed."
In the wake of the Los Angeles riots, no one objected that Nuestro Hogar would bring "bad elements" to Alvarado Terrace. At that time, too, the Union Rescue Mission owned three houses on Alvarado Terrace (now they own only one); El Rescate, a law firm that works with immigrants, lay on the other side of a small park in front of the brothers' house; and a drug rehabilitation center occupied quarters nearby. The house, a city and state historical landmark (it was built in 1903), seemed the perfect location for what the brothers wanted to do. "We thought this was a wonderful big house," said Brother Joseph. "The gentleman who owned it couldn't sell it."
Nuestro Hogar, open Monday, Wednesday, and Friday from 9.30 a.m. to 2.30 p.m., offers young men a hot meal, shower and change of clothes. "More than anything else," said Brother Joseph, the house provides "a place for the young person on the street, a home." On average, Nuestro Hogar serves 80 men a day, dropping as low as 40, and as high as 100 on some days. Parishioners from throughout the archdiocese help the brothers with their work.
Founded to help young men on the streets, Nuestro Hogar sets an age limit of 27 years for those who come there. The brothers will also help young women because, said Brother Joseph, "life is more dangerous for women on the street." A family with three children also come; "they're living in the house that belongs to the [Union Rescue] mission," said brother, "but they have to be out during the day, so they come here the days we're opened." The brothers themselves do not live at 1345 Alvarado Terrace because, said Brother Joseph, "it's a bit grand" for them. They have a caretaker, though, and Brother Joseph is at the house most of the time.
Though most of those who come to the house are homeless, "sometimes guys will come here, who used to be homeless, but have not been working for the day and will come and pay a visit," said Brother Joseph. "One criticism we've had is that people would drive up to the house in their cars. Those were the ones that used to work and came by and visit us for the day. Some guys will be looking for work downtown and they haven't any money for lunch, and they'll come across here."
Unlike some homeless missions who use food as bait to get the poor to listen to sermons, Nuestro Hogar does not force religion on the men who come there. "We didn't want anyone to feel like the only way to get a meal is to listen to a service," said Brother Joseph. Still, the brothers don't run merely a small-scale social service agency. On a table is a statue of Mary and a photograph of Mother Teresa with "Radiating Christ," a prayer by Cardinal Newman the brothers say each morning. "It's obvious our house is Catholic," said Brother Joseph, "because we have the chapel, we have the Blessed Sacrament here in the chapel, and there's a crucifix on the wall. We're always available to anyone who wants to talk about God." At times priests come to say Mass and hear confessions.
Do the men show interest in more than food, a shower and clothes? "Yes, for sure," said Brother Joseph. "We always have rosaries, and explications about rosaries and scapulars, and there are always guys who know we have something and will ask us, and that will sometimes open the conversation up as well to talk about God. We want the guys to come closer to God in their own lives as well, but without preaching on it. We hope that over time they would see how much God Himself loved them. We always tell the guys to remember Mass on Sunday. As they are leaving, I say to them, 'Remember..' and before I can finish, they say, 'yes, brother, Mass on Sunday.' They know who we are, and they know why we do what we're doing."
The brothers try to help the men avoid the bad influences the city offers - no one under the influence of alcohol or drugs may enter the house. "Everyone who comes to L.A., I think, always comes with the idea of looking for work," said Brother Joseph. "The sad part is that many of them, after being a while in L.A. and not finding work, tend to lose a lot of hope, and that's when they'll start to turn to other things, like drugs and alcohol, and, for some of them, prostitution, as well.
"One of our brothers from Venezuela, who used to be here with us, used to call Los Angeles 'the city of lost angels.' After living in Central America and seeing how joyful the people were, even though they were poor, he was always surprised in L.A. by the look of emptiness in many peoples' faces. They all come with the wonderful hope of helping their families, and then they encounter so many things on the street. Over the years some have told us that the first day in Los Angeles they were often offered the job of selling drugs or selling themselves, and that still is a common thing in L.A. There are so many parts downtown where people are looking for young boys, young men."
Has Nuestro Hogar been successful in helping young men? Brother Joseph said they have been able to help some, but following Mother Teresa, said "we aren't looking for success. Mother was real clear on that: if you are serving the poorest of the poor, you tend not to get too many success stories. We don't look for the success; Mother said that was what God could do. If we could just plant the seed in some way, God himself will take care of the seed, and everything else afterwards."
Some of the other residents on Alvarado Terrace, though, have decided that they do not want the seed planted, at least in their back yards. Some residents, organized in the Coalition to Improve the Quality of Life in Rampart, mounted a campaign to get Nuestro Hogar out of their neighborhood. Other groups have joined them in this, including the Alvarado Terrace Homeowners Association and the West Adams Heritage Association. Last May, Los Angeles city zoning officials heard residents' complaints and decided that Nuestro Hogar violated city zoning laws. Alvarado Terrace is zoned residential, said officials, and the brothers' use of the house violated that zoning.
According to Daniel Green's case report, attorney Patrick Perry, who represented the brothers pro bono, suggested that Nuestro Hogar could fit the city's designation for a church, and so could operate in a residential zone. He noted that crime has decreased since the house was founded. Other properties available in other zones, such as commercial zones, could not replicate what the brothers were doing on Alvarado Terrace.
Others spoke in favor of the brothers, according to Green's report. A Sergeant Bunche, who then worked evening patrol in the Rampart Division of the Los Angeles Police Department, said he had checked crime incidents for the Alvarado Terrace neighborhood for the past two years, and found only two incidents which were victims' calls, not calls from the scene of a crime. Ismael Contreras, who had received help at Nuestro Hogar while he lived on the streets, said the brothers had helped him along the right path in life. Contreras now has a family. Sandra Martinez, a neighbor, said she didn't know where Nuestro Hogar was located, but that she considered it a resource for the community.
Mary Ann Hutchison of the Coalition to Improve the Quality of Life in Rampart lives next door to Nuestro Hogar. (I tried to speak with Hutchison; a third party, Senior Officer Joy Smith said she would relay my message to Hutchison, who never called back.) According to Green's case report, Hutchison, described herself as an expert on homelessness - she said her homeless organization had coined the word "Nimby" (Not In My Backyard); she had attended 12 years of Catholic schools; she had even taken her two nieces to Mother Teresa films. Hutchison noted that most homeless in Pico Union are black and crack-addicted (suggesting that the brothers' hispanic clients come from outside the neighborhood.) She complained that people from Nuestro Hogar parked their cars in front of the house, hung out in the park across the street, and slept on the porch. (She said she had submitted a video to prove this.) She alleged that the brothers had asked two officers not to arrest a narcotics suspect because she was a guest in the house. (A rebuttal from the brothers denied there was such an arrest.) Hutchison said few service calls reached the police because the brothers will not call police.
Officer Joy Smith's testimony seemed to contradict Officer Bunche's. Smith said that in the park (which, she noted, was made for children) there had been five arrests for gunshots in the past week. She noted constant drinking in the park and a case of indecent exposure. Wednesdays and Fridays, she said, witness the highest number of arrests in Rampart. (Curious whether Officer Smith ascribed the high crime rate to Nuestro Hogar, I called her again for clarification. I left a message on her cell phone, explaining my query, but received no further response.)
Officer Smith and another property owner in the neighborhood said that some people, not knowing the location of Nuestro Hogar, knock on doors of other houses on the wrong days and at the wrong times -- even at midnight. Inez Enriquez, the brothers' other next door neighbor, said for ten weeks she heard catcalls from a homeless man and had trash thrown over her fence. She has seen, she said, visitors to Nuestro Hogar peeking through the fence and men urinating outside. She noted Nuestro Hogar at times gives Alvarado Terrace an unresidential feel.
A letter from David Raposa, a realtor in the area, indicated that real estate values in the area were increasing, but that the institutional use of 1345 Alvarado Terrace brought down property values by at least 20 percent. He claimed that the house, which the brothers bought for $325,000, could sell for $450,000. "I have several clients looking for just this type of historic home, in this area, who would proudly continue its original single-family occupancy," said Raposa's letter.
The zoning commission decided in May that the brothers were in violation of zoning laws and would have to move their operation. The brothers appealed to the Central Area Planning Commission who, following the recommendations in Daniel Green's case report, on August 28 turned down the brothers' request for a zoning variance for church use. Though Green admitted that "high crime in Westlake is generally recognized," and that "residents fears of anonymous people flocking to the applicant's property may be overdramatized," the brothers have "provided no information suggesting that its patrons indeed live in the immediate area." The brothers' work "could easily be relocated to any number of other areas in Westlake where the requested uses are permitted as a matter of right."
Brother Joseph denies that Nuestro Hogar has a negative effect on the neighborhood. "At the first hearing in May," he said, "one lawyer from El Rescate said the house had been there for two years before he knew it existed. Different neighbors have told us that they didn't know what we were doing until they received letters from the city about the first hearing. We are open for hours that are quite short so that the ministry would not effect anybody -- people who are at school or at work. The inspector from building and safety said there was no negative effect on this neighborhood."
Brother Joseph said that the neighbors will not rid themselves of "bad elements" by getting rid of Nuestro Hogar. "We live in Pico Union," he said. "We often hear [police] helicopters at different times of the day; often gun shots go off in the park, mostly in the evenings. On the days we are closed I can see neighborhood men drinking in the park." The accusation "that the guys would leave the house and urinate in the park," said Brother Joseph, "doesn't make any sense, since we have toilets here. I won't say that no guys who left here had a beer in the park; we haven't caught them doing it; but it's not true that the guys leave here, go to the park, drink, do drugs, walk over gardens. We see the guys when they come and when they go, and they know that there are things we don't accept.
"Some people would come up to the house from the park and go back again," said Brother Joseph. "That doesn't mean we are responsible for them being in the park. We don't let them in, because they are under the influence or are too old." Brother Joseph, said he spends most of his time at the house; at other times there is a caretaker. Why, he wondered, "if people are going to other peoples' houses to look for us, how come they never come here? Sometimes we occasionally get people looking for the Union Rescue Mission at night; El Rescate, sometimes, but that's rare. There were some things that were said [at the hearing] that were not always true."
Los Angeles councilman Ed Reyes supported the residents against Nuestro Hogar. Tony Perez, a Reyes spokesman, said opposing the brothers' appeal was not "an easy decision for us at all. We recognize the work. We don't want them to leave." Perez said Reyes' office told the brothers that "we will be as aggressive as we can to find them a different location, somewhere along the corridor nearby."
"We did do our own investigation," said Perez. "The brothers would tell us that the men who would use the facility were not going to the park. We knew it was happening - I don't mean that in a negative way, as if the brothers were lying to us; they we're telling us in good faith, but we had to be cognizant." Perez cited evidence (essentially the same allegations documented in Green's case report) which, he said, Reyes' office based on police reports and the "testimony of some of the neighbors in the area."
When I asked Perez how he squared the conflicting testimonies of officers Bunche and Smith, he seemed flustered. "Again, you know ... again, you know ... and then ... by the same token, you know ... it's the same thing, like I said ... I really don't want to get in to, again, I don't want to get into an issue, you know, that we don't want it there," said Perez. "I know this smacks of Nimbyism -- it's really not the case. We have to be cognizant that it's a neighborhood, too. One of the testimonies, one of the graduates, there, from the program, who is now at a junior college and plans to teach at Belmont high school, he said, people smoke pot at the park, people do drugs in the street, and that's just the way it is in that neighborhood. That's almost like laying down your hands and saying, 'well, okay, that's the way it is, that's the way it always should be.'"
Brother Joseph, though, does think it is Nimbyism. "The homeless are an easy group to attack," he said, "because many people have fears of homeless people. If you hear of someone being attacked by a homeless person, you think all homeless people are angry and violent. But they don't so classify the rest of humanity when someone else, who isn't homeless, attacks someone. We're all children of God. I've never understood, even as a kid, why somebody can be scared of a homeless person. There was one homeless man in our town [in Scotland], an alcoholic, and I remember my mother saying to me, 'that's some mother's son.' That's when I realized that he was no different from me. He was older, he was homeless; that was it. If this house was causing one-tenth of the problem or one-fiftieth of the problem that those against us say it does, I would think it was the wrong place for us to be, as well. But we're not causing the problems people are saying we're causing."
Brother Joseph is unsure what he and the brothers will do when the formal order comes to close the house. "We would have to sell it," he said. "We have no other ideas of what to do with it. What we could we do with the house that would be acceptable to the people here? Nothing, really. We have a lot of property on the next street where the brothers stay, and we have a house for some guys who are mentally ill. But we know we can't do the job we are doing here in any other street, because people would say we are doing the same thing -- bringing this element to the neighborhood."
Ironically, Brother Joseph has come to see the decision against Nuestro Hogar as a sort of victory. "One coworker said, after the hearing, you guys have won, I am really happy for you," said Brother Joseph. "I said, what do you mean we've won? She explained to me, if we're really working with the ones Mother Teresa says we should work with, no one would really want them anywhere close by. If people were saying, it's wonderful having you brothers here and the guys who are coming we just love, then we probably wouldn't be serving those whom Mother said we should serve. So, in some way we did win, because we know we are doing what we are called to do. We're serving Jesus in the poorest of the poor."