Shelter for Homeless Hits Snag on Coverage

The high cost of liability insurance has delayed the opening of the San Fernando Valley’s first daytime shelter for homeless women and children.

The shelter, dedicated by Mayor Tom Bradley in December, was scheduled to open in mid-January in a Van Nuys church. But its sponsors, the First Methodist Church and the San Fernando Valley Friends of Homeless Women and Children, failed to find insurance they could afford until about two weeks ago, a spokeswoman for the two groups said Monday.

“Even finding anyone who would insure a shelter for the homeless was a problem,” said Sheila Gam, founder and past president of the Valley support group.

Marsha Hunt, president of the San Fernando Valley Mayor’s Committee, which will help finance the shelter, said the high premiums are a result of the McMartin Pre-School child molestation case.

Problem Overcome

“Insurance rates for any place children will be cared for is astronomical,” Hunt said. It looks as though the insurance problem has been overcome, she said, and that the shelter will open within a few weeks.

Barbara Schnyder, president of the Valley Friends of Homeless Women and Children, and the Rev. Glen Haworth, the church’s pastor, could not be reached Monday. Gam said she did not know the cost of the insurance the sponsors found.

Jim Nagel, a representative of Mr. Build Co., which provided free labor to renovate the quarters, said a full-time director has started work at the facility, named the Valley Women’s Care Cottage.

The company, which also will have a seat on the shelter’s board, will sponsor a benefit at the Los Angeles Home Show May 23 for the shelter and a project for the homeless in Ventura, Nagel said.

Organizers say the shelter will provide a place for women and children to shower, rest, eat and get help in finding employment and housing. It will be open only during the day because zoning laws do not permit people to sleep in the building.