Safety Net Nonprofits Tour and Open House

Free or low-cost healthcare, food, legal services, emergency shelter beds, and homelessness prevention programs– they are all here in Laguna Beach to provide a safety net for the most vulnerable members of our community. The nonprofit organizations that provide these vital services will simultaneously throw open their doors to offer insights to local residents and fall election candidates on Thursday, Oct. 27 from 10 a.m. to 12 noon for the 2016 Safety Net Nonprofits Tour. All are invited to tour and ask questions of the local nonprofits that work to prevent area residents from falling into poverty, homelessness, hospitalization, and worse. Guests are invited to learn more about these four local organizations’ important missions:
• Laguna Beach Community Clinic – 362 Third Avenue – provides excellent and compassionate medical care to patients regardless of their ability to pay.
• Friendship Shelter – solving homelessness in south Orange County, one person at a time. Friendship Shelter will conduct tours at two venues:
- 32-bed self-sufficiency program and offices –1335 South Coast Highway at Mountain Road
- Alternative Sleeping Location – 20652 Laguna Canyon Road – 45-person emergency shelter managed by Friendship Shelter for the City of Laguna Beach
• Laguna Food Pantry – 20652 Laguna Canyon Road, north of the Dog Park – offers free, fresh, nutritious groceries to anyone in need;
• Seaside Legal Services – 301 Forest Avenue at Glenneyre, upstairs – provides free legal help in civil cases for those who cannot afford representation. 
The tour – held on a weekday as these service providers go about their daily tasks – aims to draw attention to the hard-working nonprofit organizations that create a social safety net as life in Orange County, and especially Laguna Beach, become more expensive and difficult for even middle-income people to make ends meet.
Guests are invited to walk in during tour hours for informative 10-minute overviews, ask questions, and learn how each organization supports and sustains an often overlooked segment of our community.  

“We organized a similar tour before the 2014 elections,” noted Barbara McMurray, the organizer. “It proved to be a good way to connect city council candidates with the mission of each of these nonprofits, to walk their hallways, see who they serve, and talk face-to-face with their directors to gain a greater understanding of their daily challenges and victories.”