Agencies Form Coalition to Aid Homeless

A daylong conference Friday on the San Fernando Valley’s homeless resulted in the formation of the first coalition to establish shelters for homeless people in Valley.

The conference, held at California State University, Northridge, brought together more than 250 persons representing about 50 groups whose efforts to help the Valley’s homeless population--estimated to be between 2,000 and 10,000--have in the past been fragmented.

Robert Docter, chairman of the CSUN Department of Educational Psychology, one of the event’s sponsors, called homelessness “the most serious problem” facing Valley community leaders today.

“It’s time for action in the San Fernando Valley and today we begin,” he said.

The coalition includes a cross section of church, government, civic and social service organizations. The conference’s chairman, Fanda Bender, said the groups will move rapidly to develop a master plan for dealing with problems of the homeless.

“I would like to see a series of small shelters established in communities throughout the Valley,” said Bender, who also is co-founder of the San Fernando Valley Friends of Homeless Women and Children.

“We need shelters that meet the needs of various types of people-- teens, women and children, the elderly. There are all types of homeless people out there.”

Bender said the first coalition meeting will take place as soon as a date and place can be agreed on.

Rabbi Steven Reuben, chairman of the Valley Interfaith Council Task Force on the Homeless, said he believes a new project sponsored by his group can serve as a model for shelter development.

Beginning March 1, 25 rooms in the Fiesta Motel at 7843 Lankershim Blvd., North Hollywood, will be used to shelter the homeless under a $55,000 federal grant approved last week by the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors. Better Valley Services, a nonprofit agency that provides low-cost housing, will administer the program.

Reuben said the Interfaith Council is working on a long-range program to persuade a government agency to lease or buy the entire 77-room motel for use as a shelter for the homeless.

Actress Marsha Hunt, honorary mayor of Sherman Oaks and founder of the Valley Mayors’ Fund for the Homeless, said Friday’s conference was “overdue, effective and promising.”

“So many times we have meetings and talk about things that never are heard of again,” Hunt said. “But this conference is different. It must be the nucleus to turn the Valley on about the homeless problem.”

Mayor Tom Bradley, who pledged his support to the coalition, said the city has been surveying possible sites for shelters in the Valley.

County Supervisor Ed Edelman said the county is attempting to establish a shelter for the homeless in a vacant wing of a mental health facility in Van Nuys.