Food for the Soul : The reservations-only Bread and Roses Cafe offers wholesome fare, flowers, art and classical music. Meals are free. But what makes it unusual is its clientele--the homeless.

How much carrot and how much stick?

In the coming weeks, Santa Monica will attempt to put together a comprehensive policy for dealing with its large, unruly and desperately poor homeless population. It is a defining moment for a city whose commitment to helping those in need is unmatched almost anywhere in the country.

In this special report, three articles examine various aspects of the homelessness problem:

* A meeting of the planning commission

shows how the issue seems to permeate almost every aspect of city government. A simple proposal for an expansion by one social service agency erupts into an all-night wrangle.

* A Q&A; with social worker Vivian Rothstein explores in depth the nature of the problem and outlines some possible solutions.

* A visit to an unusual restaurant just across the city border in Venice offers a glimpse of the good things that can happen when the homeless find a brief respite from the streets.

People who eat at Bread and Roses Cafe, a popular haunt tucked into a back alley of Rose Avenue, say they have been around the country and have never experienced anything quite like it.

The reservations-only cafe has wholesome food, fresh flowers, artwork, classical music and friendly service.

But what makes Bread and Roses unusual is its clientele--a collection of travelers whose diversity rivals those motley pilgrims that Chaucer gathered for their 14th-Century journey to Canterbury.

One recent morning, the restaurant’s waiting line included a ponytailed Cuban gentleman with a guitar; a woman with a patch on her eye pushing a grocery cart with old clothes, paper bags and two pumpkins; a man reading a paperback, with another tucked under his belt; another man with a torn winter coat and uncombed hair, muttering to himself; an elderly woman rocking back and forth on a crowded bench, and children who--despite having spent the previous evening sleeping in church pews--kept dashing to the screen door to peek at the cafe’s Halloween decorations.

Bread and Roses is a restaurant for the homeless--perhaps the only restaurant for the homeless. For diners, the small but cozy place--like Chaucer’s Tabard hostelry--is a welcome road stop where they can sit and rest their sore feet, fill their stomachs for free, and swap tales.

Since theirs is a journey of homelessness, customarily their tales are of assaults, of evictions, of abuse, and of babies going hungry.

At the tables at Bread and Roses one morning last week, though, this life was forgotten as people gossiped about friends, traded recipes, made Halloween plans and scolded their children for eating the orange-frosted doughnuts before their macaroni.

It was probably the only time that day they could act like their old selves.

“Eating here makes you feel like you’re a person again,” said C. J. Dexter, a homeless woman whose poetry is tacked to the restaurant’s bulletin board, near a rules list outlawing drugs, drunkenness and violence.

The 3-year-old restaurant operates under a simple credo: Free food does not need to be slopped out in soup bowls in institutional settings.

The restaurant was created by volunteers at Venice’s St. Joseph Center, a nonprofit and nonsectarian organization devoted to helping the impoverished. It grew out of a program that had trucked sack lunches to homeless men on Venice Beach.

The restaurant’s founders dreamed of giving the homeless pretty things to look at and a place to sit and find company as well as food.

“We wanted to uplift their spirits as well as nourish their bodies,” says Rose Harrington, who quit her job as a college professor to become the restaurant chef. “They are human beings. Just because they are homeless doesn’t mean they don’t have a desire for beauty and dignity.”

Beauty at the restaurant is provided by pink walls, tablecloths, flowers and a boombox that plays classical music. Volunteer waiters still chuckle about one man who was always the last to leave--finally he admitted it was because it was the only place left in his life where he could listen to Johann Strauss.

Director Rhonda Meister of St. Joseph Center says this approach is not much more difficult or expensive than providing standard services. “Putting pink paint on the wall and playing music on a radio costs no extra,” she said.

Much of the food, supplies and labor are donated. The biggest hurdle was overcoming opposition from neighbors, who feared the restaurant would import crime, vagrants and dirt. Before the restaurant opened in 1988, Meister and residents went through a long mediation process in which they settled on several conditions for the restaurant’s operation.

These include a limit on the number of meals that can be served each day, hours that will not interfere with children attending nearby schools and an entrance in the back instead of the front, so that the homeless people are not so visible.

And one more thing--no doggy bags: Neighbors didn’t want trash.

To abide by these rules, diners must sign up for one of three morning shifts: 9:30, 10:30 or 11:30. Because this meal is the only full meal that many of the homeless will receive all day, the restaurant staff usually tries to serve a potpourri brunch of coffee and milk, bread or pastries, fruit, a main course with meat or other protein, vegetables and dessert. Children get a treat of cookies, crackers or candy.

By the end of the month, when many of the homeless have used up their relief checks, the sign-up line for reservations stretches around the block at the nearby St. Joseph Day Center, and up to 20 people a day may be turned away.

The Day Center is a cramped and noisy place a few blocks down the street that offers an array of services, from showers to job programs. Staff members hope that by signing up for the restaurant, the homeless will hook into these other services, including a new program that trains the homeless to work at the cafe and, eventually, other food establishments, says Kelly Hayes-Raitt, the program’s development officer. So far, 15 people have graduated from the program; four have found jobs.

A recent survey of diners found only a few suggestions for changes: One respondent requested more meat, adding, “when you have beans, please cook them more.” Several requested tacos and tortillas, and one diner begged for split pea soup.

But praise was overwhelming. “It’s the best place in town to eat if you don’t got nothin’,” said David Rozier last week. “It’s not like the other lines, where you get stale bread and people treat you like they’re better than you. Here, you can forget about your problems for a little while.”

The homeless are especially grateful to the waiters and waitresses, who they say treat them with respect. Sometimes clients even apologize for being unable to afford tips. A few leave behind flowers instead.