A place to turn to

Growing up in the cornfields of Indiana, Dale Fitch never imagined he end up in California.

He expected to start a family, plow a farm and live happily in the Midwestern fields.

Now he spends his days as a shepherd for the area’s homeless in an experiment that started out with setting out a pot of coffee for them that has grown in to a temporary shelter and a major food distribution center.

It all started after he fell from grace as the pastor of a Nazarene church in Maywood, the victim of his own sexual addictions. He sought help from a New Life treatment center in Anaheim and then, injudiciously, agreed to appear on Geraldo Rivera’s talk show. The producers were supposed to mask the guests, but apparently didn’t do a good enough job and when the church elders found out they suspended him.

For three years he worked with his mentors to regain his status.

“I had no problem with any of it. I felt it was fair,” he says.

Part of his redemption then in the early ’90s led him in 1992 to work as a chaplain at the Union Rescue Mission in downtown Los Angeles.

The biggest lesson was the power of treating the homeless as equals to restore their dignity.

“One of the things that happens to people on the street is they lose their identity,” he said. “One of the things we try to do is just get acquainted. Sometimes just listening to them makes all the difference in the world.”

He’s seen some of the area’s wealthiest people volunteer at the Lighthouse, an exchange that powerfully affected them as well as the homeless.

“They serve the food, set the table and some even brought their children,” Fitch said. “I really see what we do as two-fold. It gives the experience to those not homeless to help them have a sense they can make a difference.”

Fitch came to the Lighthouse in 1999, working part time.

He became the full-time pastor in 2002. In March of that year he felt compelled to help the area’s homeless and started with the lesson he learned at the Union Rescue — he set out a pot of coffee, opened the doors and invited the homeless in to get better acquainted.

“It was also to allow them to have a safe place off the street,” he said.

Then the deluge of donated clothes and food started. Some grateful guests asked if there was something they could do. “Sure, I’ve got all these clothes that need sorting out,” he told them.

And that was the beginning of his residency program, which lets some of the homeless stay at the church as long as they do some chores there.

He has about 20 homeless people, mostly men, staying at the Lighthouse now. Most stay about a year and work, saving enough to get a place of their own. Some work but still cannot afford rent, so they hang on.

As the economy continues to nosedive, the requests for service shoots up, Fitch said.

“One thing we have noticed is an increase in families,” he said. “And not all of them are homeless. They may have a place to live, but they don’t have enough money for food.”

Fortunately, food “has not been an issue,” he said as the donations just keep coming.

About midway through last year, Share Our Selves in Costa Mesa, which provides a variety of social services, including food, to the area’s needy, saw a huge jump in demand for help.

In the medical and dental clinics, 189 homeless people were treated between July 1, 2007 and the end of the year. During those same months last year, 263 homeless people were helped at the clinics.

Share Our Selves gave out 3,434 bags of groceries to the homeless between July 1, 2007 and the end of that year.

Last year, during those same months, the organization gave out 5,383 bags of groceries to the homeless, a 57% increase.

At Serving People In Need in Costa Mesa, the nonprofit’s executive director, Jean Wegener, talks despairingly about what she characterizes as “the quiet siege,” a surge in requests for services for white-collar workers.

“Overall, demand is up about 70%, which is staggering,” Wegener said.

Serving People In Need offers three programs: housing for needy families, substance abuse counseling and food and clothing to the homeless.

“I’m getting calls from board members saying, ‘I have a friend who has been laid off from a job. Can he call you? He used to earn six figures,’” Wegener said.

Many calls, Wegener said, are from families who have not been homeless before.

Many of these white-collar workers “have no idea” where to turn for help when their fortunes quickly turn. Worse, a lot of the government aid that’s available doesn’t address these kinds of problems – they’re designed to help society’s chronically helpless.

With donations also slowing, it makes it harder for nonprofits like SPIN to pay the electricity bill and other expenses.

“I just got my notice from the county,” Wegener said. “My grant for housing has been slashed in half.”