Food Line Ends at City Hall : Charity: Ordinance will dismantle 89-year-old woman’s handout of edibles to needy. Opponents say giveaway brings criminal element to park.

ORANGE —  Despite a parade of passionate speakers lauding Mary McAnena’s private crusade to feed the homeless, the City Council on Tuesday passed an ordinance that would effectively dismantle the 89-year-old woman’s five-day-a-week food line at W.O. Hart Park.

Citing horror stories from park-area homeowners who say seven years of free meals have attracted a criminal element, the council gave initial approval to a policy requiring groups of 25 or more people who want to use the park to apply for a permit. The new law would also limit each group’s use of the park to once a week.

That restriction, McAnena told council members, is in effect an attempt by residents and the government to turn their backs on the homeless.

“Let us not say, ‘Let’s get rid of them,’ ” the Irish-born widow said. “We can’t get rid of them. We can’t because they are our brothers and sisters in Christ. Whether we like it or not, they are.”

But residents such as Lorna Deshane painted a picture of a onetime family park that has deteriorated into a haven for drunks and petty criminals. In a cracking voice, she described how two homeless women who frequent the kitchen had “chased” her around the park screaming obscenities and threats.

When her protests brought grumbles from the partisan crowd, she asked for fairness.

“We will work with you, I promise you, but please don’t hammer on us like we’re horrible people,” said Deshane, who delivered a petition that she said bore 500 signatures in support of the ordinance. “I don’t hate you, I’ll work with you. I just want the park back.”

Mayor Gene Beyer presented a police study that showed that the Hart Park area had 50% more crime calls than Real Camino, another city park about the same size. He also read off a list of youth groups, including the Boy Scouts and Girls Scouts, that have reportedly stopped using the park in recent years because of increasing crime.

However, the homeless who have come to rely on McAnena’s charity painted a dramatically different picture.

One man tentatively spoke about how McAnena’s charity saved him when he had no place to turn and helped him survive until he again became “a productive member of society.” But a few minutes later, a young girl who had to stretch to reach the microphone asked simply for a park where she could play and feel safe.

Council member Joanne Coontz spoke most strongly in favor of the ordinance. She drew criticism from McAnena’s supporters by saying many of the regulars at the food line were not necessarily people whom the city should be assisting. “Some of them are already into crime and we know that,” she said. “We have to ask, ‘Do they deserve it?’ ”

McAnena, who received a standing ovation at the end of her speech, asked council members to delay the ordinance for “five or six months” so her work could continue uninterrupted. In the meantime, she hopes to raise the necessary funds to relocate to the St. Vincent DePaul Society facility--a move that still faces several levels of government approval.

Council members, who were often interrupted by McAnena’s four dozen supporters, said the ordinance would not go into effect for 90 days. Until then, they said, it can be reviewed or altered.

Councilman Fred L. Barrera also stressed that he and Beyer were forming a committee to study the St. Vincent DePaul option and other alternatives that would save McAnena’s program.

For Eric Skelton, one of the unemployed people who line up five days a week for McAnena’s hot meals and words of comfort, the vote Tuesday was one more injustice in a world where the odds seem stacked against the have-nots.

“I can’t believe they are out to get us and her like that,” said Skelton, one of nine homeless people who attended the meeting. “I saw the way they shot people down when they tried to speak.

“I wanted to say something myself, but I knew no one up there would listen to me. They never do.”