Costa Mesa Home for Women Is Shut Down

For more than 21 years, the tract home on the edge of a well-groomed Costa Mesa cul-de-sac managed a trapeze act: balancing the need to house women just released from jail while remaining good neighbors with most of the homeowners who lived around it.

Women would arrive--sometimes handcuffed--with their heads bowed. But soon they traded their prison garb for work attire. Many went on to solid jobs and happy lives.

But there is no such happy ending for the halfway house itself.

Last Monday the House of Sarah, Orange County’s only halfway house for former female inmates, was forced to close down. This despite what city officials acknowledged was an excellent relationship with neighbors and only a few complaints over the years.

The last six women living at the home were transported by van to the nearest available halfway house, in San Diego.

The closure troubles some law enforcement officials, who say such facilities are needed because an increasing number of women are going to jail.

“The best public safety is to turn people’s lives around,” said Steve Goya, regional parole administrator for the state Department of Corrections, which funds halfway homes. “Our department’s view is that we try to provide as many women’s programs as we can. . . . [W]omen inmates are largely overlooked.”

Back in 1979 when the House of Sarah first opened, some neighbors were wary. But they have come to accept the House of Sarah as a fixture on the block. Loud college students with a bent for partying who rent nearby homes piqued more tempers, several neighbors said.

None of the neighbors interviewed were even aware the halfway house had closed down.

“If they had ever given us reason to be concerned, we certainly would have complained,” said Sue Bardsley, a 35-year resident of McKinley Way. “They seemed to be doing some good, and they kept to themselves.”

The closure was ordered by the Costa Mesa code enforcement office. City officials said it recently discovered that the House of Sarah should never have been allowed into the neighborhood because of zoning regulations.

Officials said they didn’t even know the rehab center existed until last year, when the city conducted a full-scale review of all its group homes.

Costa Mesa historically has been hospitable to group homes, which number about 119 such facilities, said Sandy Benson, the city’s chief of code enforcement. But recently, city leaders have supported stricter enforcement of zoning ordinances--and that meant closing down some group homes illegally located in residential zones.

The House of Sarah is “very well run and very much needed in the community. . . . I don’t think we’ve ever had a complaint about it,” said Don Lamm, Costa Mesa deputy city manager. “But the laws have to be enforced.”

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The House of Sarah is a reentry program designed to turn female offenders into productive members of society. The women--all nonviolent offenders--receive job- and life-skills training, educational opportunities and attend narcotics and Alcoholics Anonymous meetings. Over two decades, more than 600 women have gone through the home.

The need for such facilities is growing. The number of women detained by police in Orange County for serious crimes jumped by one-third over the last decade, state crime data show.

And the state Senate’s Joint Committee on Prison Construction and Operations has recently discussed forming a task force to address creating more programs that help former inmates integrate into society.

“Given a chance, many of these women are ambitious and ready to do something good,” said William Woolbright, who ran the House of Sarah. “[The house] helps them break the cycle of recidivism. It gives them a chance to repair their lives. . . . You don’t just want to plop them down on some street corner right out of prison.”

The women took Toastmasters’ lessons and eventually got jobs in the neighborhood.

Dennis Johnson, the general manager of the Wendy’s restaurant on Baker Street in Costa Mesa, said the 15 former inmates he employed over the last year have all shown a strong desire to do good.

“The employees I had were excellent. They were thankful to be given a chance and made the most of it,” Johnson said.

Three women became managers. He said the day the women were taken to San Diego, two who were his employees called and apologized.

“It’s not their fault,” Johnson said. “It’s a shame for the girls.”

The women’s jobs will be waiting for them when their sentences are up, the manager said.

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One of his employees, Catherine Roth, 29, of Anaheim, was about to embark on management training when the women were told they had to go.

“I was only on the job two months and they were training me to be a manager. Already I was being trusted. Being in a position like ours, that felt good,” Roth said during a phone interview from the California Mother-Infant work furlough program in San Diego.

The closure leaves many shaking their heads.

“As far as I’m concerned, they were OK,” said Kay Firebaugh, a 37-year resident. “What they were doing was giving a second chance for these women to get back into civilization.”