Neighborhood protests treatment home expansion

Jennifer Kho

COSTA MESA -- Signs on more than two dozen Willow Lane homes make it

clear that controversy abounds on this otherwise quiet street.

“Wrong direction for New Directions,” the signs state.

The three New Directions for Women group homes on Willow Lane include

two plain cottages that house up to six women each and a big brown one

that accommodates up to 18.

The homes have been part of the New Directions for Women alcohol and

drug rehabilitation program since 1977, but now residents on the street

are saying that enough is enough.

New Directions for Women is in escrow to buy a fourth home on the

street, and a group of Willow Lane residents plan to ask the City Council

to intervene.

“Our problem is that New Directions for Women is a business,” said

Jennifer Crandall, a Willow Lane resident. “This is a neighborhood of

single-family houses, a small, quiet street with a ton of kids. We

believe this type of facility is not safe in a permanent single-family

residence. Suddenly we have a neighborhood filled with strangers, and we

feel the neighborhood is saturated.

“The home needs to be in a commercial zone. They charge for their

services so they are a business.”

According to the Addiction Resource Guide, an online guide for people

seeking treatment, the facility charges $8,000 for a three-month stay.

The rehabilitation program now has seven homes on three streets in the

area -- Willow Lane and Redlands and University drives, according to a

New Directions for Women brochure.

Those homes are for women only. The new home that is proposed at 2596

Willow Lane would accommodate women with children, said Jan Christie,

executive director of New Directions for Women, adding that there is a

great need in the county for rehabilitation centers for women with

children.

The new home would house a total of up to 12 people, including

children, she said.

“We think it is important to establish a facility for women and

children because right now there are less than 50 beds available in all

of Orange County for women with alcohol dependencies and their children,”

Christie said. “Women with children often don’t get treatment for

alcoholism because they don’t have child care and then they end up losing

their children.”

Further complicating the issue is the fact that Willow Lane is in

unincorporated county land, proposed to be eventually annexed into Costa

Mesa.

Christie filed a county application for a permit for the new group

home Friday.

Crandall said the group of neighbors opposed to another group home is

hoping that the council will be able to persuade the county Board of

Supervisors not to review the application, because the area is expected

to be incorporated into Costa Mesa.

Councilwoman Linda Dixon said she is concerned about the possibility

of an over-concentration of rehabilitation homes in the city.

“I don’t think a lot of people realized, when they voted for

Proposition 36 to send people to rehabilitation instead of jail, that

rehabilitation homes of six or less are going to be popping up all over,”

she said.

But Christie said the women and children will be part of the

community.

“The children will be going to school in the school district,” she

said. “These women are making a contribution to the community by holding

their families together. They will continue to come to after-care and

stay involved with New Directions. They will not stay in that

neighborhood for years, but we will. And we want to be good neighbors. We

feel that is resolvable.”