Amid the Riches, Some Residents Struggle to Make Ends Meet : Poverty: Of the nearly 67,000 people who live in Newport Beach, more than 300 are on welfare.

NEWPORT BEACH — Born to an affluent family on exclusive Lido Isle, Paula has lived most of her 43 years in Newport Beach. Today, however, she’s at the other end of the city’s financial spectrum, squeezing into a one-bedroom apartment with her 10-year-old son.

“It’s a fallacy to believe that everybody in Newport is rich. That’s just not true,” said Paula, who asked that her real name not be used.

“There are a lot of struggling people . . . a lot of us just hang in there because we were raised here,” she said. “A lot of people just don’t know what it’s like to do without here, so they just don’t understand.”

Though Newport Beach is one of the nation’s wealthiest communities, there are still have-nots scattered around the city.

Of the nearly 67,000 people who live there, more than 300 are on welfare--some in each of the city’s five zip codes. The 1990 census reported 3,731 people--about 6% of the city’s population--live below the poverty line.

“You don’t necessarily find the barrios in Newport Beach, but there are single women with small children who are working and don’t have any support from their husbands,” said Karen McGlinn, who runs Share Our Selves, a local pantry. “Somebody who might look tidy and clean and goes to the office that day, we’re not aware that when their tires go bald they don’t have the money to replace the tire. They might not be obvious, but they’re there.”

Local social service groups said they have seen more and more requests for help from Newport residents hurt by the recession in the past few years. Along with unemployed single mothers like Paula, the city’s poor include gardeners, housekeepers, baby-sitters, waiters, and hotel workers who serve Newport’s rich population.

In 1992, Friends in Service to Humanity found nearly 8% of its emergency-assistance clients in Newport Beach. And last month, more than 200 Newport Beach residents, including 92 children, received free food from Share Our Selves.

“There’s a facade,” said Jean Wegener, a 20-year Newport Beach resident who is executive director of the Costa Mesa-based agency, Serving People In Need. “People picture Newport as being a sunny, sun-drenched, palm tree encrusted little jewel by the sea . . . (but) there are a lot of people who are living on the edge.”

Some have even toppled over the edge.

Jack Lazalere, one of a handful of homeless people scattered among the fishermen and tourists that flock to the Newport pier, jokes about his waterfront condo. At high tide, the sea washes up to the sand under the pier where he sleeps each night.

Like many Newport Beach residents, Lazalere said he chose his neighborhood for its location.

“I was raised by the ocean, that’s how come I’m here,” said Lazalere, who grew up in Redondo Beach. “I like the beach, that’s all.”

A steamfitter who said he drank too much to keep his job, Lazalere has been living on the street for about three years. He moved from Santa Ana, which recently enacted an anti-camping ordinance, to the Newport coast a few months ago. He said he doesn’t beg, but accepts donations of food, coffee, cigarettes and money. Most days he gets enough for a bottle and at least one meal.

“The older you get the harder it gets,” Lazalere sighed. “You aren’t going to get many opportunities here (under the pier), but I sure like the view.”

Paula, too, said she stays in the city because she loves the ocean atmosphere. Plus, the schools are good, and Newport Beach is, well, home.

She grew up surrounded by yachts on Lido Isle, then moved to a nice neighborhood on the Upper Bay after her parents’ divorce. When she married, the couple rented a home on the Balboa Peninsula, near the beaches of her childhood.

Today, Paula scrapes by on $1,200 a month in unemployment benefits and child support payments she spent four years fighting for in court. The view from Paula’s room in the Oakwood Apartments on Irvine Avenue is of Newport Harbor High School, where she was graduated years before.

Though she appreciates the familiarity and the safety of Newport Beach, Paula said being surrounded by success makes struggling more difficult.

There is no free medical clinic in the city, Paula complains. And children at Newport Heights Elementary School tease her son for not wearing fashionable clothes or for being picked up in her dented 1985 Chrysler LeBaron.

“People are real snooty here,” she said. “They’re afraid to say hello to you, they’re scared they’re going to get robbed or something.

“I’ve been rich and I’ve been poor. I like rich better--I’m not crazy,” she said. “But those just aren’t my values anymore. I find that empty. People that are really into that (money), I just wouldn’t trust them.”