ANAHEIM : Welfare Site Is Bursting at the Seams

Space is a rare commodity at the county welfare office on Homer Street.

Parking spots are difficult to find, wooden benches in the reception area are almost always filled and employees’ desks are tucked into every nook and cranny of the office. The county Social Services Agency has outgrown the space it shares with the Health Care Agency.

“We’re just stuffed together wherever we can put people because it’s so crowded here,” said Phyllis Morikawa, eligibility supervisor for the Anaheim office. Clients there receive Medi-Cal, Aid to Families with Dependent Children, general relief, and job training and counseling.

The Social Services Agency wants to open a new office in Fullerton to lessen the burden on the crowded Anaheim office, but Fullerton officials have resisted.

After its proposal was rejected by the city last spring, the county revised the plan and brought it back to the Fullerton Planning Commission this week.

The Planning Commission on Wednesday voted 6-1 to deny the county a permit to operate the office in an industrial area. Commissioner Susan Zepeda dissented.

Robert Griffith, chief deputy director for the Social Services Agency, said the county searched for a site for more than four years before settling on an existing building at 1900 E. Orangethorpe Ave.

Finding a spot is not easy because it must be near a major freeway, adjacent to a public transportation line and have adequate parking, Griffith said.

A Fullerton location would be ideal because more than 2,500 Fullerton residents now travel to the Anaheim office on Homer Street, Griffith said.

One of those clients is Vonnie, a 30-year-old single mother who lives in Fullerton.

Several times a month, she borrows a friend’s car to drive to the office in Anaheim, where cries of babies echo in the reception area and children play on the worn tile floor.

“I’m just coming to bring a piece of paper and I’ve been waiting 2 1/2 hours,” Vonnie said.

Eligibility officers, who work directly with those who receive assistance, say they would be able to serve clients more efficiently if a new office was opened.

“We don’t have enough space here. We’re all on top of each other,” said Raymonde Stephenson, who has worked in the Homer Street office for 4 1/2 years.

But Fullerton city staff, some members of the city’s business community and the majority of council members and planning commissioners have said that the welfare office is not compatible with the city’s general plan, a master plan that calls for industrial use in the area.

But county officials say they are in a bind.

“From our perspective, it’s kind of a Catch-22,” Griffith said. “We don’t believe there’s a commercial zone in the city that would accommodate us.”

Griffith said he is not sure whether the county will appeal the decision to the Fullerton City Council.

He said it is urgent that a new facility be opened soon. In January, when some provisions of the Catastrophic Health Care Act go into effect, the county expects the approximately 22,000 clients receiving assistance to increase by 10,000 people, he said.

Griffith said the county Social Services Agency will be talking to the real estate department about finding a temporary site as a stopgap measure.

“It’s getting to be desperation time,” Griffith said.