DANA POINT : Closed Soup Kitchen Can’t Afford to Open

The operator of a soup kitchen and halfway house shut down by the City Council said Friday he cannot afford the application to remain open.

Marc Ely-Chaitlin, who opened a nonprofit shelter on Olinda Drive in the Lantern Village residential neighborhood on April 15, said the city informed him on Friday that he would have to submit a $1,900 cash deposit.

The deposit, according to the city’s letter, is necessary before the city can process a conditional use permit.

Ely-Chaitlin said he has already spent “nearly $6,000, most of it for rent,” to open his operation in a five-unit apartment house and that he could not afford the additional cost.

“There’s no possible way I can come up with this kind of money,” he said. “I’m already in the hole, big-time.”

Ely-Chaitlin said he had stopped advertising free food at his soup kitchen, although if someone was to come he would feed him. He also said he would put none of the 22 people living in the building out in the street.

“If they want to take the responsibility for putting these people out in the street, they are going to have to do it themselves,” Ely-Chaitlin said.

“I’m not quite clear on exactly what we are going to do,” he said. “I’m just trying to deal with the poor people in this town. The council says they are compassionate, but all they have done is try to shut me down.”

Ely-Chaitlin said no one from the council has contacted him and offered any help or guidance.

Lance Schulte, a senior planner for the city, said the $1,900 is a deposit only and that it is meant to cover staff time involved in processing an application. He also said Ely-Chaitlin could apply for a fee waiver from the City Council because his operation was nonprofit.

“It would be up to the council to evaluate if the waiver would be justified,” Schulte said. “Basically, the council would have to make it a gift of public money.”