Food bank cuts back on service to singles.

Byline: SUSAN PALMER The Register-Guard

The respite was short.

FOOD for Lane County's Eugene dinner program had barely settled into its new home at the former Govinda's restaurant on West Eighth Avenue when neighborhood complaints compelled it to stop feeding hungry people.

The suspension of service at The Dining Room is temporary, said food bank Executive Director Caroline Frengle. Sometime in the next two weeks they'll open up again. But this time only families and senior citizens will be welcome.

It's the latest chapter in a saga that has plagued the food bank since it took over the program three years ago from Community Family Soup Kitchens, a struggling nonprofit agency.

In its old incarnation, the soup kitchens only served families, but because of at least one complaint to the Eugene Human Rights Commission, the food bank initially opened the dining room to single adults as well.

And that's when the problems began.

The recent complaints include those from Reflections, a beauty salon next door to to the food bank.

The beauty salon business has lost customers since The Dining Room opened in mid-November, said Vicki Bell, the salon's owner. Men hanging around outside harass her customers, she said.

"We would hear things like, 'Hey, baby, I want a piece of you,' horribly harassing things," she said.

Clients would drive by, calling her on their cell phones, saying they were afraid to come in. "We had clients say they would not be returning," she said.

When the food bank learned of the problem, they met with area businesses, city staff, police and Downtown Eugene Inc. to clear the air, Frengle said.

"As soon as we heard there was a problem, we called the meeting to see what we could do," Frengle said. "We didn't want the businesses to suffer. Things are tight enough. We know that."

About 11 business owners showed up at the meeting on Monday, and the complaints ranged from harassed customers to people panhandling, vandalism and litter in the parking lot.

No solutions came out of that meeting, but when Frengle got a call from Reflections on Wednesday saying employees had called police six times the previous night, she decided to close The Dining Room.

"We said, `Let's stop and re-assess and figure out what we want to do,' ' she said.

Police records show two calls from the beauty salon on Tuesday night.

Reflections wasn't the only business experiencing problems. Ken Hand, who owns the liquor store a block away, said he spent a long time getting rid of people who panhandled in front of his store, but the problem returned when the dinner program began.

"Now we're outside in the parking lot asking people to leave. It's not something you enjoy doing, but it's not good for customers," he said.

Everyone seems to agree that just a handful of people are causing the problems.

"There are good people over there in that line, but a group of them ruined it for the others," Bell said.

She said she supports FOOD For Lane County's efforts.

"I believe this is a very good program. It didn't turn out like FOOD for Lane County wanted it to," she said. But she doesn't think feeding hungry people downtown makes sense for the city.

"They're trying so hard to revive the downtown area, why would you ever put a soup kitchen there?" she said.

FOOD for Lane County has been struggling with the problem in both Eugene and Springfield for the past three years. Its dinner sites have bounced from church to church as church members expressed discomfort with the single men who came to eat. A year ago, Patterson Elementary School, one of the food bank's Eugene sites, asked the agency to find a new home for the same reason.

When Govinda's restaurant went on the market last fall, the food bank was able to buy the $315,000 building with help from a federal community block grant of $170,000 awarded by the city, a $57,000 gift from a local real estate developer and other donors offering between $25,000 and $1,000.

The Dining Room quickly attracted hungry people when it opened in November and regularly served hot, nutritious meals to well over 100 people. On its busiest night, it served 180, said food bank spokeswoman Dana Turell.

The agency can't just close its doors to single adults, said Greg Rikhoff of the Eugene Human Rights Commission.

"They are, for purposes of the law, a place of public accommodation," Rikhoff. That means they can't bar access based on a client's family status.

They can turn away people behaving badly, but that takes a lot more policing, Rikhoff said, and FOOD for Lane County is struggling financially, with employees recently taking a pay cut.

The food bank expects to reopen sometime within the next two weeks, Frengle said. They will serve only families and senior citizens at The Dining Room, and they expect to have more volunteers on hand to visit with people and keep the atmosphere as family-like as possible.

And there will be new rules. Anybody who appears drunk or who smells of alcohol won't be allowed to eat, she said.

"There will be zero tolerance," she said.

The agency is still looking for a way to accommodate single adults, she said, and that problem remains unsolved.

"If that means supporting some other agency, then that's what we'll do," she said.

She understands the concerns of the area businesses, she said. As she and other staff handed out the final brown bag dinners on Wednesday night, there were a handful of angry men, apparently drunk, and yelling, she said. Their friends quickly silenced and hustled them away, she said.

But hunger itself isn't going anywhere, and people who don't have enough food still need to be fed, she said.

"FOOD for Lane County and the whole community and those merchants need to take a good hard look at the problem and come up with solutions. These aren't throw-away humans, and we have a responsibility to them," she said.