Three weeks ago, a Superior Court judge awarded Pilates instructor and former Pasadena Star-News reporter Kathy Braidhill just more than a quarter of the damages requested in a complaint she filed last year against the city of Pasadena, a city code compliance officer and Mehran Baghgegian, the owner of a building she rented space from to open her Pilates studio.   

In the end, the judge ruled against Baghgegian, but dismissed the city from Braidhill’s lawsuit.

Despite Braidhill never receiving written notice from the city prohibiting her from operating her business at that building because of a code compliance issue, Judge Bruce Mitchell agreed with the city and city Code Compliance Officer Sharon Gray and absolved the city of responsibility for the $15,413 that Braidhill poured into the business while awaiting word on her business license application. 

The city argued, and Mitchell agreed, that one phone call from Gray to Braidhill was adequate notice of the building’s compliance problem. According to court documents, Gray argued that Braidhill understood the issue because she got into a bicycle accident after hearing the information. However, hospital documents show the accident actually happened several weeks after that phone call.

“There’s this regulatory vacuum in the city in which small business owners are trapped and fall prey,” said Braidhill. “They wind up paying a lot of money, the property owner gets the money, the city doesn’t do its job and doesn’t enforce its own laws, and we wind up having this really bad climate for small businesses.”

In October 2011, Baghgegian rented space at 55 Waverly Drive in Pasadena to Braidhill for her business, Studio K Pilates, without informing her that the only use permitted for that site was a warehouse. 

On Oct. 14, 2011, Braidhill submitted an application with the city for a Code Compliance Certificate and a business license, according to court documents. 

On Oct. 28, 2011, Gray denied Braidhill’s Code Compliance Certificate because the building did not have a Certificate of Occupancy. She called Braidhill that day and told her that her application was being denied, but Braidhill did not consider that “confusing” phone call to be proper notice.

“I remember asking her, ‘Why are you calling me if there’s a problem with the building?’” said Braidhill. “There was a lot of traffic and I couldn’t understand what she was really saying. It was very noisy.”

That call lasted 12 minutes, according to phone records provided by the city. Gray said she would write a letter that day explaining the situation, but she never sent it. Braidhill spent months calling Gray and the city, as well as going to City Hall in person, despite significant injuries she suffered in the accident on her bike, to find out the status of her business license application, unsuccessfully. She was told it wasn’t ready yet. She was not told that it had been denied.

“I sought out the information time and time again,” she said. “I did not get a message saying I needed to move out immediately. My impression was that I wasn’t supposed to do anything because I didn’t own the building and I didn’t receive a letter.”

In April 2012, Braidhill hired an attorney who had a meeting with Gray and received from her the letter dated Oct. 28, 2011. That’s when Braidhill said she first understood that she could not run her studio at that location, and had to uproot her business immediately having already invested thousands of dollars into it.

Gray stated in court documents that “the letter was not mailed due to an investigation concerning the status of the building.” In April 2012, Gray opened a code compliance case against Baghgegian regarding his use of the building for other than that of a warehouse. Braidhill’s attorney was told that Baghgegian had not complied with city rules regarding the 55 Waverly Drive property for more than a decade.

“How long does it take to bring a property owner into compliance?” asked Braidhill.

She contends that the city did not properly notify her that the building was out of compliance, which ended up costing her more than $15,000. Gray and the city argued in court papers that since Braidhill called Gray on Oct. 31, 2011 and told her during a one-minute conversation that the information provided to Braidhill during the Oct. 28, 2011 phone conversation was “so surprising that she had gotten into an accident on her bicycle,” she had therefore been properly notified. Braidhill said this was not true. She was actually hit by a tile truck on her bike on Nov. 10, not during the Oct. 28 phone call. Records from Huntington Hospital show that she was admitted on Nov. 10.

Then, during the hearing on Jan. 15, Braidhill claimed that Gray told her in the Alhambra Courthouse hallway that Braidhill told her about the bike accident during a phone call on Nov. 16, a different date than she argued in court papers. However, according to the city’s phone records, that phone call was placed by Sgt. Bruce George, the Pasadena police officer who responded to Braidhill’s accident, to Braidhill, not from Braidhill to Gray. It is unknown how Gray actually found out about the accident.

Gray, who retired last month, referred all questions to Chief Assistant City Attorney Javan Rad.

“The declaration says what it says, and Sharon Gray testified consistent to what her declaration said,” Rad told the Weekly after the discrepancy about the accident was pointed out to him. “The real date that matters here is on Oct. 28 [Braidhill] was given notice that her code compliance certificate was denied. It’s a matter of following the rules.” 

“I don’t know how an imaginary bike accident serves as a legal notice,” Braidhill said. “I sued the city because they didn’t send me the letter informing me that the property didn’t have a Certificate of Occupancy until I hired an attorney to extract it from them.”

Either way, the judge sided with the city, saying it wasn’t the city’s fault that it was noisy when Gray called to inform her that her application was being denied. The judge agreed with the city that the issue was between Braidhill and Baghgegian, who was ordered to pay her the settlement amount of $4,201 by Feb. 15 or appeal the decision. Braidhill said the settlement amount is nowhere near how much money she lost because of this incident.

“I felt as though the city took advantage of the fact that I had been the victim of a horrible accident and turned it against me in order to re-victimize me and wants to pass that off as ‘litigation,’” she said.

She recently opened another studio at Hill Avenue and Walnut Street called Pilates Pasadena.

“I’m fighting on, so to speak,” she said, “despite being ground by the boot heel of the city and the property owner. The city can do a better job of taking care of these property owners and actually notifying small business owners. I’m not interested in suing Gray personally, but if the city wants to encourage a small business climate and allow us to make a living and not get sucked in by these property owners who are out to deceive people, we need protection.”

Last week, Braidhill received a photocopy of the mediation confidentiality agreement in the mail from the office of the City Attorney/City Prosecutor, without any note or letter. She interpreted this as “ham-handed intimidation” by the city, and wrote a letter to her City Council representative, Councilman Terry Tornek. Tornek said he would comment after receiving the letter, which he had not yet seen.

“As a proud, longtime resident of Pasadena and a proud small business owner, I am ashamed at the conduct of the city,” she said. “I am embarrassed that the city concocted an odd down-the-rabbit-hole story instead of conducting itself honorably and telling the truth. I would like, perhaps, to get my $109.40 (business license application fee) back, if not the nearly $3,000 in legal fees to extract the letter I was promised and never received. And to conduct a formal review of this matter to determine the truth of what happened so that others hoping to start a small business don’t have to suffer thousands of dollars in losses like I did as a result of the city’s double standard. And yes, I would like the city to do me the courtesy, as I have in done in its forms and applications, to receive an answer in writing.” 

Although the films selected by the curators of the first annual Pasadena International Film Festival begin screening on Wednesday at the Laemmle Playhouse 7, the curators themselves are especially excited about Thursday night. That’s when the Westin Pasadena will host the festival’s Great Gatsby-themed gala, a black-tie affair that’s free and open to the public.

The festival, which will screen 85 films from Wednesday, Feb. 12, through Sunday, Feb. 16, features a different party every night, with the gala Thursday, industry mixers at various bars and restaurants in Pasadena on Wednesday, Friday and Saturday, and the awards ceremony at the Laemmle theater on Sunday night. There will also be speakers and panels at the Pasadena Museum of History and the Pasadena Central Library.

The theme of the festival itself is 1920s Old Hollywood, a metaphor for “where the old world of film meets the new world of new media.”

“Film as we know it is over,” said the festival’s founder and Pasadena resident Jessica Hardin. “Everything’s going through this huge overhaul and huge shift. The studios are basically just focused on distribution at this point. I and a lot of other people miss the old Hollywood where everything was fresh and new and a smaller amount of people were involved. Everything had a sense of elegance about it. With new media, it’s a whole new thing where people are starting to try to make names for themselves online and with Web series, because the market is so super saturated that they’re trying to find vehicles to squeeze their projects in.”

Hardin and her husband, Marco Neves, both actors, decided to bring a film fest to Pasadena after Neves toured the festival circuit for his 2011 movie “Redemption.” Neves, the festival’s creative director, went to the Almería Western Film Festival in Spain and got an inside look at what it takes to prepare a festival.

“I shared that information with Jessica and we realized, ‘We could do this,’” he said. “Of course, we had no idea how hard this was going to be. This is a behemoth.”

Hardin and Neves have been developing the festival for more than two years. Now in the home stretch, they’ve had to deal with threats of litigation. One of their rules is that filmmakers who submit films must own all the copyrights. An attorney called them and said there was a disagreement between a writer and the directors and producers of a film about copyrights regarding the film, so it was taken out of the running for the festival. The filmmakers actually showed up at Hardin and Neves’ door, yelling and screaming and asking why they were no longer in the lineup and threatened to sue them unless they showed the film. Hardin had to call the cops and got a restraining order against them a couple days later.

Still, Hardin said all the hard work and craziness has been worth it.

“I started laying the groundwork and it sort of snowballed because I think Pasadena was really ripe and ready for a festival,” said Hardin. “When I moved here what I liked was all these events, Art Night, dance festivals, Cheeseburger Week, jazz and wine; it seems like every week there’s something going on. Pasadena is the best of all worlds.”

They met with Mayor Bill Bogaard who said there have been a lot of festivals that have tried to make it in Pasadena but couldn’t get the funding. Method Fest moved to Calabasas and Action on Film moved to Monrovia. The Pasadena International Film Festival’s sponsors include the Pasadena Film Office, the Pasadena Convention and Visitor’s Bureau and the city’s Department of Water and Power. 

“We hope that with the success of this year’s festival, next year the city will be a little more supportive,” said Hardin. “Most high-end festivals cost seven figures to put on. I’d say it’s unheard of to do it at the low end we’re doing it at. But the low levels do not represent the quality of the festival. We were smart about it, got creative and used the barter system a lot. We were actually able to not only have a festival, but have a very nice festival.”

As for the films themselves, Hardin and Neves were surprised by the high quality of the submissions they received. Out of 300 submissions, they’ve selected 85.

“We’ve got some really good films in this festival,” said Hardin. “And names, like shorts with Luke Wilson, Ernie Hudson … surprising stuff. It’s more of that super saturation I was talking about. There’s so much out there now that even the stars are going to festivals because at least it’s a vehicle to show their movies.”

The festival includes 15 foreign films from 12  countries, including Russia, Brazil, India, France, South Korea and New Zealand, as well as the United States. Three films are local productions. One, a film that was originally called “Pasadena” until the film’s distributors made the filmmakers change the name to “Cold Turkey,” was filmed in Pasadena and stars Peter Bogdanovich, Alicia Witt and Cheryl Hines. The filmmaker’s idea was that Pasadena is like an East Coast town on the West Coast. There’s also a Pasadena-based production company called Moonhill Productions that has two films playing in the festival: “Salvage” is a documentary about the homeless problem in Los Angeles, and “Zombeo and Juliécula” is the story of Romeo and Juliet with zombies and vampires.

Hardin said the festival will include some great documentaries. “Not My Life,” narrated by Glenn Close, is about human trafficking. “After Kony — Staging Hope,” produced by Melissa Fitzgerald and Martin Sheen, documents the use of drama and writing therapy in Uganda as a creative outlet. “Uniform Betrayal” is about rape in the military.

Film screenings will run from 11 a.m. each day until about midnight. All Access Passes for all screenings cost $95. Industry Passes cost $50 with industry business cards or guild membership cards. Daily Passes cost $25. All of the festival’s events are within walking distance of each other.

“Another thing I love about Pasadena is the walkability of it,” said Hardin. “I wanted to make a walkable event so people could stay at the Westin, go to the Laemmle and walk to pretty much everything. We’re trying to build a film community in the city, because there’s so much culture here. We wanted to make everything accessible.”

On Wednesday a soft opening party will be held at Japon Bistro. Screenings will take a break Thursday evening so the Great Gatsby gala can kick off at 6 p.m. at the Westin, complete with a red carpet, hors d’oeuvres, dinner, cocktails, a performance by the Pasadena Symphony and POPS, speeches, awards, a deejay and dancing. Friday’s industry mixer will be held at the Speakeasy, known during the day as New York Deli. Check their Facebook page for the password to get in.

At 1:30 p.m. Saturday producer Tim Harms will moderate a panel of industry leaders as they discuss “The Future of Film” in the Donald Wright Auditorium at the Pasadena Central Library. That panel will be followed by another one moderated by actress and writer T. Lynn Mikeska. The topic of the second panel will be “The Transformational Power of Women in Film.” The industry mixer on Saturday night will be held at SECO: New American Restaurant.

On Sunday, world renowned film historian Marc Wanamaker will give a lecture on Old Hollywood, the history of film and its relation to Pasadena, starting at 4 p.m. That event costs $15 for non-members, $10 for members and $20 at the door. Tickets include museum admission, Wanamaker’s lecture, a wine and cheese reception and parking. To cap off a whirlwind weekend of films, parties and events, the Pasadena International Film Festival’s award ceremony will take place at 7 p.m. Sunday at the Laemmle, followed by a final reception at the Vertical Wine Bistro. 

Earlier this month, the Pasadena Humane Society opened a new facility next to its existing campus, aimed at keeping pets in homes and out of shelters.   

The Humane Society opened the $20 million, 35,000 square foot Animal Care Center on Jan. 9. It is currently closed on Mondays, but will be open to the public seven days a week starting Saturday.

The new facility at 361 S. Raymond Ave. includes a wellness clinic with an expanded, high-volume spay and neuter clinic that will be open Tuesdays through Saturdays, allowing veterinarians to perform 20 spay and neuter procedures on dogs, cats and rabbits per day. No city money was used for the construction of the Animal Care Center, which was funded by community supporters.

On Monday, the Pasadena City Council decided that on July 14 it will consider an ordinance that would either require all dogs and cats to be spayed and neutered or just all pit bulls and pit bull cross breeds older than 4 months.

Ricky Whitman, vice president of community relations for the Pasadena Humane Society, said that breed-specific legislation will not solve the problem of pet overpopulation. The agency’s position is that all dogs and cats should be spayed and neutered.

“There are more animals than there are homes for them. All adopted pets get spayed and neutered before going to their new homes, so it’s publicly owned animals we want to appeal to to come in and offer low-cost spay/neuter,” said Whitman. 

The Animal Care Center also features an affordable vaccination and microchip clinic that is open on Wednesdays and Saturdays; a dog daycare that will open in February; an education and training center that will host seminars and training classes; a dog boarding facility; underground parking; and the shelter shop, an expanded pet store with food, accessories and clothing. All proceeds from retail sales will go to Humane Society programs.

“It’s a very exciting time,” said Steven R. McNall, president and CEO of the Pasadena Humane Society & SPCA. “We’re focusing on expanded programs to help stop the tragedy of pet overpopulation. The Animal Care Center is a proactive approach to keep animals in their homes and out of the shelter.” 

Just 30 hours after the Pasadena City Council held off from enacting proposed legislation mandating the spaying and neutering of pit bulls, police were forced to shoot and kill one of three pit bulls that attacked a cyclist.

The Wednesday morning incident prompted Councilman Steve Madison, who proposed the ordinance, to renew his calls for better control of pit bulls.

“Pit bull lovers, and there are a number of them and they are passionate about their dogs, argue that they don’t bite any more frequently than other dogs,” Madison wrote on Facebook a few hours after the attack. “That’s beside the point, because we are talking here about the gravity of the harm, the severity of the attacks.”

Pasadena police Lt. Tracey Ibarra told the Pasadena Weekly that the department’s focus in on public safety and not on one particular breed. “Our viewpoint is any dog could be a threat,” Ibarra said.

In Wednesday’s attack, the dogs — which had not been sterilized — went after Pasadena resident Andrew Ross, 37, shortly after 5 a.m. in the 1400 block of North Fair Oaks Avenue, as Ross was walking his bike. 

According to a witness who notified police, the dogs knocked Ross down and dragged him by his legs. Ross fended off the attack by using his bicycle to block the animals, then broke away and climbed on top of a nearby car, where he stayed until police arrived.

According to Ibarra, the dogs were still in the area when police arrived and initially appeared to be leaving, but then turned and began advancing toward the officers while barking aggressively. 

An officer discharged a shotgun, killing one of the dogs. But the two other dogs continued advancing on officers, who were then forced to shoot at the other two dogs, which then left the area but were later recovered by animal control officers. The conditions of the other two dogs were unknown. 

Just before midnight Monday, the City Council voted 5-3 to table Madison’s proposed law, which was first passed by a 6-1 vote in November and was up for a first reading and passage. Now, the ordinance will be brought back for reconsideration in July. At that time, the council will decide whether to proceed with plans to target only pit bulls for sterilization or include all breeds in the program. By that time, the Pasadena Humane Society will have finished its survey of licensed dogs in Pasadena. 

Monday’s action marked a major about-face for the council.

Council members John Kennedy, Terry Tornek and Gene Masuda voted against the motion to table the matter, desiring to deny passage on the first reading.

“I continue to feel, and based on what I’ve read and what the [Pasadena] Humane Society told us last time we discussed mandatory spay and neuter, that we should continue with the path we set out on in October, when we discussed mandatory spay and neuter for all breeds,” said Councilwoman Margaret McAustin, who along with Mayor Bill Bogaard and Council members Victor Gordo, Jacque Robinson and Madison voted to table to issue until the council’s July 14 meeting.

In November, when the matter came up for a vote, the pit bull-specific ordinance was opposed only by Robinson.

“The desire to criminalize millions of completely innocent dogs, or groups of anything else who have been generically and unfairly deemed to universally fit some negative connotation as a whole is fundamentally wrong on every level,” said Pasadena resident Josh Liddy, one of 55 people to turn in speaker cards prior to the marathon meeting.

“People are individuals, and so are dogs. If you treat them in the opposite ways then you not only discriminate wildly but also resoundingly fail to even attempt to address the problems associated with the individual incidents or attacks that have jump-started these debates in the first place,” Liddy said from the speaker’s podium.

Like a similar law passed by the Riverside County Board of Supervisors, Pasadena’s proposed law would force sterilization of pit bulls older than 4 months. The law would exempt show and service pit bulls, those used by law enforcement and dogs facing health issues during sterilization.

Pro-dog Web sites have been attacking Madison’s proposed ordinance for the past three months. 

“Breed-specific legislation has a long history of being  HYPERLINK "http://www.nopitbullbans.com/2013/10/31/what-is-bsl/" \t "_blank" racist legislation,” wrote the editor of nopitbullbans.com. “And yes, even breed-specific, mandatory spay/neuter legislation doesn’t just target pit bulls, but often their minority owners, typically African-Americans and Latinos.”

“Uneducated, cruel owners are to blame for violent dogs, not just pit bulls, but dogs in general,” wrote Jessica Carla de Lima-Moran. “And these owners would ignore a ban regardless. These bans are useless.”

There are 14 states with laws prohibiting such breed-specific legislation. State lawmakers in California cannot establish most breed-specific laws, but county supervisors and city council members may establish breed-specific spay/neuter programs, Pasadena City Attorney Michele Beal Bagneris said Monday night. Dozens of California cities have repealed or rejected such legislation, a staff report on the ordinance explained, while eight cities have joined with Riverside County in passing these types of laws.

Despite overwhelming opposition to the ordinance, Madison held fast to his position that pit bulls are a dangerous breed.

“I continue to believe, based on the data and facts I have seen, that pit bulls are extremely dangerous,” Madison said Monday. “There is undeniably a correlation between this breed, for whatever reason, there is a connection between this breed and severe attacks. I do think it is incumbent upon us to take some action. I’m not worried that my Maltipoo is going to kill someone.”

The local ordinance was opposed by the Pasadena Humane Society. 

“Mandatory spay/neuter of all dogs and cats remains our recommendation,” said Humane Society Vice President Elizabeth Richer Campo. “It is smarter to have effective vicious-dog ban laws that support the work of the Humane Society to ensure the community is safe.”

According to Monday’s presentation, 15 percent of the dogs in the care of the Pasadena Humane Society are pit bulls, and 27 percent of all dogs euthanized are of that breed.

Pasadena has not had a fatal pit bull attack, but there have been a number of incidents involving the much-vilified animals. 

On Jan. 11, a man was trapped inside his car by an aggressive pit bull on Washington Boulevard, near Lincoln Avenue. The dog was Tasered by a Pasadena police officer. The animal escaped, but was picked up as a stray two days later. Ultimately, the owner volunteered to surrender the dog to the Humane Society.

On two occasions prior to Wednesday morning, Pasadena police officers were forced to kill roaming pit bulls that charged toward them. 

In October, a pit bull that was not on a leash attacked a man walking his dog in Victory Park in east Pasadena. The man was trying to stop the animal from mauling his pet. Councilman Masuda, whose district includes Victory Park, told the Weekly that the man was not seriously injured. Since the incident, the city’s Public Works Department has placed more signage in the park, reminding dog owners to keep their pets on leashes.

Masuda said at the meeting that he had never seen so many people express their opposition to a single topic before, referring to the correspondence that poured into the city in the weeks before Monday’s meeting.

“As a council I know we care about public safety, but is this law fair? I don’t believe it is,” Masuda said Monday. “I don’t support having a pit bull ordinance right now. I think we should have the other ordinance come forward, where all dogs and cats are equally spayed and neutered, to have a breed-neutral law, rather than a specific law.”

In his Facebook posting, Madison expressed vindication for his position on the issue.

“They argue that if properly cared for pit bulls are loving, peaceful pets,” he wrote. “Well, three of the five fatal attacks in California last year were by the victim’s family’s pets. But even if true, that many pit bulls behave peacefully does not change the fact that year-in year-out the overwhelming number of the most severe attacks are committed by this breed, notwithstanding its relatively small population.”

Last week, dozens of Fuller Theological Seminary students and community volunteers met in Payton Hall on the Fuller campus to prepare for the annual Pasadena Homeless Count and Subpopulation Survey. The Office for Urban Initiatives (OUI) at Fuller, a community-based nonprofit research organization, in collaboration with the city and the Pasadena Housing and Homeless Network, conducts the survey each year to more accurately estimate the population of Pasadena’s homeless residents on a given day.   

Pasadena has been conducting the headcount, which was performed Wednesday night, since 1992, after the US Census reported there were 432 homeless persons in Pasadena. Not satisfied with this number, Joe Colletti, an adjunct professor at Fuller, went before the Pasadena City Council and proposed an official homeless count. The idea, Colletti said, was that a more accurate number could better inform policy with regards to funding aid programs for the homeless.  “We really were very intentional about ending homelessness in Pasadena,” Colletti told the Pasadena Weekly. “And the best way you can measure that is by doing annual counts that will show the numbers are either going up or down.”

In September 1992, 250 volunteers canvassed the streets and shelters of Pasadena and determined approximately 1,017 persons were homeless — more than double the Census estimate.

‘Well-oiled machine’

Colletti has an extensive resume regarding homelessness and community development. He is the founder and CEO of the Institute of Urban Initiatives and co-founder and CEO of the Episcopal Housing Alliance and Economic Development. He currently serves as director of OUI at Fuller, where he has taught urban development for more than 20 years. Over the years, he has created numerous residential and nonresidential programs aimed at helping people with mental illness, substance abusers and victims of domestic violence. 

In February, the Ecumenical Council of Pasadena Area Congregations named Colletti its “Person of the Year,” among other local- and state-government awards he’s garnered.

For such an accomplished person, Colletti has not forgotten the spiritual calling with which his passion for the underprivileged began.

“I believe that the biblical command is to solve social injustices, not avoid them,” he said. “The idea is to end them.” Now, after more than two decades of experience in conducting the count, “it’s a well-oiled machine,” he said. “The more key persons we got together and the more often we got together, the better we got at implementing homeless counts. As volunteers come back each year, we get better and better.”  This “well-oiled machine” has been so successful here in Pasadena that similar programs have been implemented across Southern California under Colletti’s guidance. A homeless count and subpopulation survey is now required by the US Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Continuum of Care Homeless Assistance Program. While the continuum of care program had focused for many years on moving homeless people from the streets to transitional housing and eventually into permanent housing, this was determined to be quite costly; it could take an average of two to three years before a homeless person obtained permanent housing. According to Colletti, this method has proven to be more effective.

“If I was a homeless person and you were helping me while I’m in housing, you’re going to be a bigger help to me because I’m housed,” Colletti said. “You’re helping me not lose it.”

‘They’re just folks’

The Weekly reported in April that after a spike in the number of homeless persons in Pasadena beginning in 2008 due to the Great Recession, reaching its peak in 2011 with 1,261 persons, the 2013 count reported a promising 37 percent decrease in the number of homeless people over the last two years, with 772 homeless people living in Pasadena. 

HUD defines homelessness as someone living in 1) a place not meant for human habitation, such as cars, parks or abandoned buildings, 2) an emergency shelter, or 3) transitional or supportive housing for homeless persons. It must be noted that count figures do not include those residents at extreme risk of becoming homeless. In fact, one in four Pasadena residents live in a household with an income of $15,000 or less, according to an OUI report.  Still, Colletti and hundreds of volunteers are committed to ending homelessness in Pasadena. Homelessness for Ron Crosthwaite, a volunteer in Wednesday’s count, hit close to home and inspired his participation.

“My son had a drug problem and that really led to his homelessness,” he said. “He went into this homeless phase and then just disappeared altogether. We didn’t see him for six months.”

Fortunately, his son checked into the Salvation Army Adult Rehabilitation Center in Pasadena, got clean and is now working as an interstate truck driver. But his close encounter with homelessness helped Crosthwaite realize something which perhaps inspires other passionate anti-poverty advocates like Colletti in their work: “Your image of the homeless is one thing and the people that you meet are entirely different,” said Crosthwaite. “They’re just folks.”

Shelter from the storm

Friends in Deed, a division of the Ecumenical Council of Pasadena Area Congregations, has been providing homeless services in the area for 120 years. Richard Cheung, a chiropractor who serves as one of the co-chairs on the Friends in Deed Board of Directors, said he’s proud of the Women’s Room, Food Pantry and Bad Weather Shelter that are all run by the nonprofit organization.

“From what I’m seeing as a resident and business owner in Pasadena, at one point from a very completely subjective observation the homeless population looked like it had dropped,” said Cheung. “That was confirmed by the head count that the housing department did. We would like to take part of the credit in that with what we do over at Friends in Deed. Obviously there are other agencies but we definitely like to take credit for that along with the others. We’re the agency of last resort, which is really important because when you’re in need you’re in need.”

This winter the Bad Weather Shelter is only being opened when the temperature drops to 40 degrees and there’s a 40 percent chance of rain. The shelter first opened in 1986 and was located at the Salvation Army gymnasium until 1989. It then moved to its current location at the Pasadena Covenant Church, located at 539 N. Lake Ave., next to the Foothill (210) Freeway and the Metro Gold Line Lake Ave. Station. Colletti served as the first director of the shelter.

In November 2012 the city of Pasadena discontinued its usual contribution of $60,000 to keep the shelter running. Now the shelter relies on donations to stay afloat.

So far Pasadena has experienced unseasonably warm, summer-like weather, so the shelter has not yet opened this winter. When it’s open, the Bad Weather Shelter serves everybody who needs a place to sleep, which is why Cheung got involved with Friends in Deed.

“We get right to the heart of the matter,” he said. “We don’t dance around. We’re really impactful. We make a difference, truly, yesterday, today and tomorrow.”

They may have started out as a Christian organization, but now they’re interfaith, said Cheung.

“We’re nonjudgmental,” he said. “It doesn’t matter if you’re a Christian, Jew, Muslim, or atheist; if you are hungry and homeless we will feed you and give you shelter, because that’s what people do.”

Cheung said that the shelter is always looking for support, whether it’s financial or through volunteering, adding they don’t want to be Pasadena’s best kept secret.

Recently Mayor Bill Bogaard asked Friends in Deed to co-host with him during his 41st annual Mayor’s Prayer Breakfast, which will be held April 30 at the Pasadena Convention Center. The keynote speaker will be Elise Buik, CEO of United Way of Greater Los Angeles.

“We really want the community, businesses and residents, to really take part, regardless of your political views. No matter how the economy is doing there will always be people in need. That’s just a fact.” 

For more information on Friends in Deed, visit friendsindeedpas.org or ecpac.net.