REHAB PROGRAM FACES OPPOSITION

Imperial Beach Says Site Is Inappropriate

IMPERIAL BEACH -- Despite some frantic opposition from residents and city
officials, a nationally known nonprofit organization that trains and
employs former drug users and ex-convicts is planning to open a facility here.

"We don't want that," said Cheryl Shaumburg, a real estate agent. "The
whole city is up in arms over this. It's not something that we feel
Imperial Beach is all about, especially on the beach. We want tourists."

Mimi Silbert, president and co-founder of Delancey Street and its
foundation, said she made a nonrefundable deposit on property at the
northwest corner of Seacoast Drive and Imperial Beach Boulevard.

"We are looking to do this," she said. "I can see no reason not to."

Delancey Street, based in San Francisco, is a self-help program that
operates residential facilities around the country. Residents run
restaurants, a moving company, a print shop and other businesses that earn
about $10 million a year nationwide, Silbert said.

The foundation supports itself primarily through training schools that
provide vocational skills to the Delancey Street residents, and from
pooling money earned from businesses it runs.

Silbert said she does not know what will be done on the property, which she
described as being in incredible disrepair, except that it will be
renovated immediately.

She said she understands Imperial Beach residents' fears, but hopes to
quell any panic and move forward.

"We've never been to a place where, before they met us, they said, 'Oh,
good. Oh, good. Ex-convicts and drug addicts coming to my neighborhood,' "
Silbert said. "But we are beloved once we move in."

The foundation operates a facility in San Francisco; Los Angeles; Brewster,
N.Y.; Charlotte, N.C.; and one near Santa Fe, N.M., with a total of about
2,000 residents.

More than 14,000 people have "graduated" from Delancey Street, she said.

Silbert, 58, who has a joint doctorate in psychology and criminology, said
her residents do not drink or use drugs or resort to violence.

"Wherever Delancey Street has gone, property values go up and crime goes
down," she said. "We will improve the neighborhood."

Mayor Diane Rose, who said Delancey Street is not an allowed use in the
Seacoast commercial zone, does not dispute that.

"This is not a question of the merits of the Delancey Street
organization,which has served its mission well," Rose said. "This is a
land-use issue regarding whether or not a dormitory-style job-training
facility is allowed in a commercial and visitor-serving zone."

The purpose of the Seacoast Commercial Zone is to provide land to meet the
demand for goods and services required primarily by the tourist population,
as well as local residents who use the beach area.

The dominant type of commercial activities are specialty stores, surf
shops, restaurants, hotels and motels. The area also has a mixed-use
overlay zone, which allows for a commercial-residential mix.

San Diego Superior Court Judge Norbert Ehrenfreund, a veteran of 25 years
in criminal, family and juvenile court, said he considers finding the site
in Imperial Beach one of the major accomplishments of his life.

He has been a proponent of the program since hearing about it more than a
decade ago, and volunteered to help find a San Diego County location for
Delancey Street.

"We've been working on this for 10 years, but finding a site was the only
obstacle," Ehrenfreund said. "It's the world's most successful drug rehab
facility."

Ehrenfreund said he doesn't think prisons help convert drug offenders into
productive members of society, but facilities like Delancey Street do.

The oceanfront property in question consists of about five structures
containing approximately 30 units.

The Seaside Health Institute, an organization that rents out apartments and
offers a "sober living" program to approximately one-fifth of its
residents, owns the property.

Most residents said they received eviction notices this week, giving them
30 days to move out.

Mike Shay, who pays $800 a month for a small, two-bedroom apartment 20 feet
from the water's edge, said he was told he has until mid-February to vacate
his home of more than a year.

"I'd like to know the recidivism rate," he said. "Are 95 percent of them
going to end up back in prison?"

Silbert said one long-term study of the Delancey Street program a few years
ago showed a success rate of close to 99 percent, but said that nobody can
really know what the recidivism rate is now, since the program has had
thousands of residents in the past 30 years.

Jessica Diaz Palacios, who lives in a one-bedroom unit on Seacoast Drive as
part of the sober living program, said she plans on attending the City
Council meeting Wednesday to let council members know how she feels.

"I feel like everything's been swept from under my feet," she said. "We're
going to pray."

John Haupt, an Imperial Beach resident who owns several properties near the
Seacoast Drive location, questions whether the location is appropriate for
a rehabilitation center for people convicted of drug-related crimes.

"Why put it between a public beach and a bar in a town struggling to
overcome the perceptions of many San Diegans?" he said. "This little town
is trying to pull itself up by the bootstraps and this, in one fell swoop,
can take the city back."

Silbert said she is willing to meet with city officials and residents to
talk about what can be done there. She admitted she had her own fears when
she first looked at the property.

"I had heard bad things about Imperial Beach," she said. "I said, 'I don't
want to go there.' We don't move into bad neighborhoods. We stay away from
areas that are dangerous or difficult or problematic in any way. I did have
concerns and was reassured."