Last-Minute Loan Brings Tent Shelter for Homeless

Christmas came a day late to Tent City II, the trouble-plagued project that seemed destined to fall far short of its aim of providing holiday shelter for 200 homeless men and women in downtown Los Angeles.

An unexpected reprieve arrived just after 1:30 p.m. Friday when a 5,000-square-foot circus tent was trucked to the site of the old State Building on 1st Street, just across from City Hall.

It took 2 1/2 hours to raise the spacious tent, whose owner said it could accommodate as many as 500 people if necessary.

However, Ted Hayes’ Home for the Homeless organization, which established Tent City II, said the number would be limited to 200.

The big white tent was lent to Hayes’ organization “for as long as they need it,” said Tom Shapiro, president of the Academy Tent and Canvas Co.

Shapiro said the only charge to the nonprofit corporation formed last May by Hayes will be the $1,200 to $1,500 in labor costs for the crew which raised the tent Friday afternoon.

“We’ll write him a check right now,” Hayes said as Shapiro’s crew pulled the 50-by-100-foot tent taut. “I’m happy now. I feel like a football player who’s just got into the Super Bowl--sore and battered and bruised, but happy.”

Only a few hours earlier, Hayes, an activist for the homeless who chooses to live in the streets, had resigned himself to the idea of putting up the homeless men and women in 30 small two-man pup tents, a possible violation of his agreement with the state Department of General Services, which gave its permission to use the property only after a carefully drawn contract was signed and a $2,500 donated premium pledged on a $500,000 liability insurance policy demanded by the state.

No sooner had the circus tent gone up than Hayes was making plans to get an extension that would permit the organization to stay on the site after the Dec. 30 deadline set by the state.

Commercial Project

The site is to be developed as a 20-story commercial office building under a long-term agreement approved last summer by the city, county and state. It will be part of the $130-million public-private Civic Center Mall project. The private developer is scheduled to move onto the site Jan. 1, Hayes said.

But Hayes said he hopes public officials will delay launching of the project at least a couple of weeks.

“We want to keep this going as long as we can,” he said. “If we shut down now . . . we are robbing not only the homeless but robbing the Los Angeles community to touch the homeless, have a chance to change this thing. . . . Tent City is working!”

Tent City II originally was to have been set up last weekend, but was delayed by a tangle of red tape and misunderstandings.

The principal problem was getting the required liability insurance coverage, which finally came through on the afternoon of Christmas Eve.

Mix-Up With Marines

But then two large tents which Hayes mistakenly believed had been promised by the Marine Corps Air Station at El Toro failed to show up. A Marine Corps spokeswoman acknowledged that Hayes’ group had requested the tents, but said “we did not have the resources” to meet the request.

“There was a breakdown in communications, possibly between our office and this group,” the spokeswoman said.

Two squad tents, which had been used in 1984-85 when Tent City I was set up at the same spot, were erected late Christmas Day, but more than 100 homeless transients were forced to sleep without overhead cover. Temperatures dropped to the high 40s during the night.

Several hundred homeless people moved through food lines during the daylight hours. Eight portable toilets, which ordinarily would cost about $1,500 for rental and service, were donated by United Sanitation Co. of El Monte, and the Ralphs Grocery chain donated $6,000 worth of non-perishable food.

Scores of citizens drove downtown Christmas Day and Friday to make donations of food and other goods for the homeless.