Tent City Gets 4-Day Extension Before It Has to Fold

Tent City II, which was to have folded up its big canvas shelter for about 200 homeless people at 5 p.m. today, won permission Monday from the state to stay on its present 1st Street location until Saturday.

Ted Hayes, president of Home for the Homeless and chief organizer of Tent City II, had planned a march on City Hall to call on Mayor Tom Bradley to intervene in behalf of the homeless. But the demonstration was called off when word was received that the state Department of General Services had extended the deadline. The mayor had wired the agency urging the extension.

Department spokeswoman Ann Garbeff said a decision to extend the permit had been made even before the mayor’s telegram was received Monday morning.

Hayes expressed his organization’s gratitude to the mayor and the state for the four-day extension, but then asked for a waiver on the state’s requirement that the organization carry $500,000 in liability insurance while Tent City II occupies the site. This, he said, would enable Tent City to evolve into a reception center for the homeless.

Garbeff said she could not comment on the possibility of a waiver, since the request had not been made officially.

Hayes suggested that the three stories of underground parking beneath the Tent City site-- all that remains of the old State Building--be used as temporary housing for the homeless, at least until 1988, when construction of a $120-million, 20-story office building is scheduled to begin as part of a joint state-county-city and private enterprise development plan.

“When homeless people come to L.A.,” Hayes said, “ they usually hit this park first, and there’s nothing here in the heart of L.A. They go right down to Skid Row, which is Death Row.

“They become degraded and they die on Skid Row. If we can put a reception center here, at this property, along with the 20-story building that will go here, we can catch a lot of people before they go down to Skid Row, get them on their feet, turn them around, send them home, or send them to one of the outpost tent cities that we are trying to set up throughout the city and the state of California.”

Hayes, a former minister, said the big circus tent lent to Home for the Homeless is now accommodating about 200 people nightly. And about 1,000 are being fed each day at the site. He estimated that his group has received $3,000 in cash donations and $10,000 worth of donated food.

The U.S. Conference of Mayors estimates that 30,000 homeless people live in the Los Angeles area, although the mayor’s office says that figure is probably too high.

The temporary camp was named “Tent City II” after a similar tent city pitched on the same lot two years ago during Christmas.