Tent City for Homeless Gets the Go-Ahead

Plans for a Tent City on the site of the old state building on 1st Street between Spring Street and Broadway got a last-minute reprieve, and sponsors Saturday said the project to shelter 300 homeless people over the holidays will proceed.

Officials had said late Thursday that they could not waive insurance on the property to permit the project unless a $2,500 insurance premium was furnished. That appeared to have killed the shelter program. At the time, organizer Ted Hayes said, “We need a miracle.”

Late Friday, however, the “miracle” apparently came to pass when Canyon Country general contractor Geoff Kail donated the money to pay the insurance premium, according to K. G. Stevens, a project volunteer.

Throughout Saturday, long before the anticipated arrival of the shelters, dozens of homeless people gathered near the site. The shelter is to remain in place through Jan. 2.

Hayes had said that the Tent City is needed “to raise the consciousness level of the plight of the homeless people” after a nationwide survey presented during the week to the Conference of Mayors in Washington showed Los Angeles to be the nation’s homeless capital.

The shelter project has been named Justiceville, according to Stevens. It is the same name as was given to a weeklong program for the homeless on the same site two years ago.