A Room With a Feud in Redondo : Housing: The last occupant of a Salvation Army-owned apartment will be evicted to make way for a new complex. Robert Dreyer claims the Army’s actions will leave him homeless.

The conversation was at an impasse, and Maj. Robert Smith of the Salvation Army had started to walk away. Suddenly, he spun around to face the man on the other side of the chain-link fence.

“Why are you staying here now?” Smith asked, his eyes narrowing.

“I have nowhere to go,” Robert Dreyer replied between puffs on his cigarette.

The exchange--featuring finger pointing, yelling and insults--erupted earlier this week in front of the Salvation Army’s Redondo Beach apartment building.

The crumbling, dilapidated apartment house is among a group of Army-owned buildings slated to be torn down to make room for a $6.5-million construction project that will include a new community center, a senior citizen housing complex and a day-care facility.

But for the past two months, those plans have been held up by Dreyer, the building’s last remaining tenant. Salvation Army officials are trying to evict him. But Dreyer, who claims the eviction will leave him homeless, has fought the proceedings in court.

The battle is expected to culminate this week after a court order last Wednesday that cleared the way for Army officials to have Dreyer locked out of the apartment. The conflict illustrates how the needs of one man can clash painfully with those of a larger social group--to the detriment of both.

The Salvation Army says it regrets Dreyer will probably end up on the street, but asserts it cannot further delay its efforts to provide affordable housing for low-income senior citizens.

“It’s something that is desperately needed in the community,” Smith said. “I’ve got a job to do here. My job is to get that building down and to build a new structure.”

Dreyer, who has not paid his $375-a-month rent since July, describes the Army’s position as ironic.

“I can understand if it was a property management company, but for God’s sake, it’s the Salvation Army, a United Way organization that says, ‘Help us so we can help other people,’ ” said Dreyer, a former bank teller and bartender school graduate who makes money doing odd jobs for friends.

“All I hope is that eventually, when I am homeless, that I’ll be able to go to the Salvation Army and get a free lunch,” he said.

It wasn’t always so tense between Smith and Dreyer. Just last year Smith told Dreyer he wished all his tenants were as reliable and quiet as he.

But those feelings have soured over the past few months. There is a trace of bitterness in Smith’s voice as he recalls how he personally saw to it that Dreyer received daily hot meals when he was laid up for more than a month following a 1991 motorcycle accident. The Army also allowed Dreyer to pay his rent late.

“My staff went out and did his grocery shopping for him--bought his beer and cigarettes for him. They didn’t like that,” Smith said. “And then he turns around and says we have no compassion.”

Dreyer, however, offers his own reasons for feeling betrayed. He says he and his girlfriend broke up because Smith wouldn’t allow her to live with him unless they were married.

“I used to donate all kinds of clothes here. I had my friends come here all the time to donate clothes,” Dreyer said. “Then they turn around and do this to me.”

The quarrel comes at a delicate time for the Salvation Army. The charitable group is still $1.8 million short of funds needed to complete the project at Beryl Street and Catalina Avenue.

“It doesn’t make the Salvation Army look good,” Smith acknowledged. “We have to go to the community and ask for additional funds for the project. We don’t want to create negative publicity.”

The Army, which has operated a chapel, a kitchen and an apartment building near the Redondo Beach Harbor since the 1940s, has wanted to rebuild its facility for nearly the past 20 years.

City officials, who hoped to see the valuable property near King Harbor put to more lucrative use, initially blocked the organization’s construction plans. But when an anonymous donor four years ago gave the Army a $4-million grant for the project, city officials became more supportive, finally granting approval in 1991.

Last summer, Army officials began taking steps to move tenants out of the 20-unit apartment complex. On June 18, Smith sent a letter to the tenants telling them they would have until the end of August to move out.

The clumsily worded letter, however, made it sound as though the Salvation Army was providing a rent-free agreement for its tenants for the months of July and August.

Dreyer, who later argued successfully in court that the letter appeared to invalidate his contract with the Salvation Army, did not pay any rent for those two months. He says it wasn’t until Aug. 5 that he learned he would not receive relocation assistance unless he was paid up on his rent.

Dreyer never came up with the rent. So when Army officials paid seven tenants more than $7,000 in relocation costs, Dreyer was not among them.

Smith offered to forget the amount owed if Dreyer would move out. But Dreyer said he couldn’t afford to leave. He wanted the Salvation Army to pay his first and last month’s rent as well as the security deposit and moving expenses required to get him into a new place.

Giving him what he asked would be “capitulation,” Smith said.

In October, the Salvation Army started eviction proceedings. After several trips to court, a South Bay Municipal Court judge awarded the Army $1,000 in rent and damages and $1,000 in attorney’s fees.

But on Dec. 28, the day before a Los Angeles County marshal was due to lock Dreyer out of the apartment, Dreyer filed for personal bankruptcy--effectively stopping the eviction in its tracks.

Dreyer has kept the roof over his head temporarily, but the living has not been easy. For the past several weeks, he has been bathing and washing his dishes with bottled water. He uses rainwater collected in garbage cans behind the apartment to flush his toilet.

His front door, which once opened to a central courtyard, now faces a chain-link fence erected by Army officials to meet city requirements. Plastic sheets warning of asbestos hazards adorn the doors of neighboring apartments, and bulldozers have begun knocking down the other buildings.

On Wednesday, Salvation Army officials received permission from a federal bankruptcy judge to proceed with the eviction. They expect to regain possession of the apartment sometime in the next few weeks.

Dreyer, who is now moving his valuables out of the apartment, says he can probably stay with friends on and off, but that he expects to live out of his car most of the time. “At least I won’t be out in the cold,” he said.

Dreyer’s comment, however, leaves the Salvation Army cold.

“I’ve seen a lot of luckless, sympathetic tenants over the years . . . but I don’t think this guy deserves your sympathy,” said Laurence H. Lishner, an attorney for the Salvation Army. “Mothers with three little babies, pregnant with a fourth, and the husband runs off with the secretary--that’s the kind of person who deserves your sympathy.”