Frank Rice; Helped Mentally Ill Homeless

Frank J. Rice, veteran executive of Bullock’s department stores who started the Los Angeles Men’s Place (LAMP) to aid mentally ill men on skid row, has died at the age of 82.

Rice died Wednesday at Mt. San Antonio Gardens Retirement Community in Claremont, said his daughter, Jane Zeiger of Davis, Calif. Rice had suffered from Alzheimer’s disease.

After graduating from Redlands University, Rice joined Bullock’s in 1942 as an advertising copywriter and worked his way up to vice president for sales promotion. Asked to write a job description for the new position of vice president for community affairs, he unwittingly wrote himself into a whole new mission that would carry him far beyond his retirement from Bullock’s in 1985.

In the new vice presidency, on behalf of his employer, Rice served on the Central City Assn., became president of the Greater Los Angeles Visitors and Convention Bureau, worked in the Chamber of Commerce, the California Roundtable and the Rotary. He also was on the advisory board of the Fashion Institute of Design and Merchandising. At home in San Marino, he served as president of the San Marino Unified School Board and was a deacon, an elder and board president of the San Marino Community Church.

But, assigned to work on downtown redevelopment with the Spring Street Task Force, Rice decided instead to take on the grittier challenge of the Skid Row Task Force. That led to the Skid Row Development Corp., aimed at providing jobs and housing for the homeless. Rice served as president of the organization and its subsidiary, Single Room Occupancy Corp., and worked extensively in setting up Transition House to help the homeless get back on their feet.

“We provide an address, a place to get mail, things people need to get a job,” Rice told The Times in 1984. “You have to show stability to get a job. If you have to worry about where you’re going to sleep tonight, you can’t be a good learner in a job training program.”

Of all the problems he saw on skid row, Rice was most intrigued with the plight of the homeless mentally ill who had been released from state mental institutions with nowhere to go.

“They are nobody’s constituency,” Rice told The Times.

He made them his. He became board president of the Mental Health Assn. and a director of the Mental Health Policy Forum for California.

Moving toward his own retirement, Rice also became a direct provider of services to mentally ill men, opening LAMP on June 12, 1985. Patterning LAMP after Jill Halverson’s Downtown Women’s Center, Rice put Halverson on his board, raised the money, hired Mollie Lowery as manager and volunteered one day a week, usually in the kitchen.

He wanted to give men, as Halverson had given women, a place to eat, clean up, relax and begin to accept social services without the institutional atmosphere many distrusted.

“It will be known as a place where there will be no waiting in the street, where you don’t have to register or sign anything. There’ll be a meal served at noon, cots, bathrooms and showers, and shelves where people can put their belongings,” Rice told The Times on opening day in 1985.

Asked why a wealthy businessman would work so hard in the grimy streets of skid row, particularly with the mentally ill where results might be elusive, Rice said: “I guess it’s a feeling of wanting to help--and the fact I have a belief that things can be done if people set their minds to it.”

His favorite Biblical story, he said, had always been that of the Good Samaritan, and he emphasized that “nowhere does it tell that the [injured man] got up, joined the local Rotary, became an upright citizen, paid taxes. . . .

“The Samaritan didn’t demand any kind of performance,” Rice said. “He simply helped him and, hopefully, went on to help others.”

Rice also pursued a private dream, begun while he still worked for Bullock’s and was delving into skid row projects. With his wife, Dorothy, he bought and co-published the weekly San Marino Tribune from 1977 until 1995. The former advertising copywriter personally covered school board meetings and wrote editorials.

Rice is survived by his wife of 57 years; three daughters, Carol Williams of Monrovia, Zeiger of Davis and Elizabeth Stevens of Columbus, Ohio; and five grandchildren.

A memorial service is scheduled at 11 a.m. Tuesday in San Marino Community Church, San Marino.

The family has asked that any memorial donations be made to LAMP Inc. at 527 S. Crocker St., Los Angeles, CA 90013.