L.A. Calls ‘Lights Out’ for Little Tokyo Shelter Opened During Winter

As the lights go out at 10 p.m. with reassuring predictability, the rhythmic snores of 230 homeless people sound an end to another day of wandering the mean streets of Skid Row.

Just as predictably, but with no assurance of a replacement haven, the 411 Shelter will close for good on Friday, sending its “residents” packing with their knapsacks, brown paper bags and stained plastic wraps.

Los Angeles officials admit that the 411 Shelter is a firetrap. It is also seismically unsafe and would not pass a serious Health Department inspection. But, to the hundreds of homeless who sleep there every night, it is a four-star hotel.

It is also one of the few shelters that admit women and children.

The worn four-story brick building on the fringe of Little Tokyo used to house a city-owned print shop. It is being torn down to make way for a stylish development project.

As a shelter, it was meant to be short-lived at its conception in January during a bitter cold spell that prompted the City Council to open an emergency haven for the homeless.

It was meant “to save people’s lives,” says Maj. William J. Mulch of the Salvation Army, which operates the shelter for the city.

Four people froze to death on the streets over the weekend of Jan. 17, 1987, and the council opened its chambers to the homeless for three nights. More than 150 people crowded in.

The empty warehouse at 411 East 1st St. was already scheduled for demolition. But the council approved an emergency zoning ordinance on Jan. 23 to make “zoning and building requirements for emergency shelters less restrictive” and turn the warehouse into a temporary shelter, said Sue Flores, director of Human Services for the city.

A few hours later, the shelter opened.

“It’s not the Taj Mahal,” Mulch said. “It’s temporary at the bare minimum of the word. The sanitary facilities are such that the bathrooms are supplemented by portable toilets on the sidewalk. There are no showers. People sleep in their clothes.”

The building is such a fire hazard that the city pays seven security guards to watch for fire nightly.

The Salvation Army spends $960 a day to staff and feed residents of the shelter, which can sleep 350, Mulch said.

“It’s not a good place, but it’s better than the street. You’re not going to die from hypothermia or somebody shooting you in the head. For $3 a day, I think it’s good for a place that’s heated, lighted and secure,” Mulch said.

Inside the shelter, people lounge on cots, sharing newspapers and playing cards while listening to Motown music from a nearby radio. Rows of the canvas cots, often less than two feet apart, line the concrete floor.

The smell of alcohol-laced vomit hangs in the corners of the room, steaming from gray plastic buckets placed strategically throughout.

But to its residents, it is everything.

‘Better Than Streets’

“It’s nice. I really like it. It’s better than being on the streets,” Tina Lynch said. “You’re going to be safe and warm. There’s plenty of clean blankets and a warm area.”

“It’s safe,” said Lynch, a mother of six. “You can bring your kids here.”

Attendants at the shelter estimate that about 50 women and children sleep in the warehouse on an average night.

Not many shelters are equipped to handle children. “You’ve got to have milk and (diapers) to take care of them,” shelter attendant Tony Kemp said.

The city’s emergency zoning ordinance expires Thursday. When the 411 Shelter closes its doors the next morning, there will be one less place for homeless women to go.

Fewer Beds for Women

“The biggest single problem will be for the women, because there’s not as many beds for women in town,” Mulch said.

Because many of the homeless migrate to Los Angeles from colder regions to escape the winter, Mulch said that some of shelter’s residents will return to other parts of the country when the warehouse closes.

“Many of them will be gone, many of them will go to the missions--and the missions are now not full. Some of them will move back to the streets.”

Jane Brown, who has slept at the shelter for a month, said she hopes to get her welfare check before the shelter’s closing date and move into a hotel.

Otherwise, she said, “I hear they’re opening up a new mission down the street somewhere soon.”