Compton Shelter Rises Again With Help From Conservation Workers

After a fire drove seven homeless families from a Compton shelter last August, Sister Gloria Davis and her nonprofit Emergency Service Network could not afford to pay the full $20,000 needed for repairs. So the California Conservation Corps sent a work crew from San Pedro last week to wield the paint brushes free of charge.

After a few more minor alterations, the duplex at 513 West Palm will reopen as the network’s only Compton shelter for those with no place else to go, coordinator Navie Smith said.

In photo above, Davis meets with contractor Leonard Runderson, left, and Ray Cary of the Conservation Corps outside the shelter. Corps member Ivory Walker, in photo at right, paints window trim.

The Emergency Service Network, organized in 1965 by the General Interdenominational Assembly Church of the First Born, which is based in San Fernando, also operates a shelter in South-Central Los Angeles and a third in the San Fernando Valley.

Homeless families are given food, clothing, counseling and transportation for up to 30 days, Smith said. “It gives them the opportunity to save up two (pay or welfare) checks” before they have to move on, Smith said.