UCI Gets Request for On-Campus Shelter for Homeless

Officials of UC Irvine are studying a request by some city officials and members of a citizens group that the university allow temporary shelter on campus for homeless people, Chancellor Jack W. Peltason said Tuesday.

Although Irvine Mayor Larry Agran and the Ad Hoc Coalition for the Homeless have not presented any specific proposal, Peltason said lawyers for the university have been instructed to look into the situation.

“We have had talks with the mayor and other people. If they bring us a proposal, we will take it seriously,” Peltason said. “But we have to look into what terms and under what conditions we could do this. That’s what our legal counsel is doing now.”

But the chancellor cautioned that all discussions and studies have been strictly exploratory.

Agran also said no specific proposal to house the homeless on UCI’s campus has been presented to university officials.

“This is all in the very early stage of discussions, and there is nothing of consequence yet. But we hope it will develop into something,” Agran said. “The chancellor was nice enough to look into it for us, and that’s what he is doing.”

The mayor said UCI rented unused apartments to Irvine Temporary Housing, another private group which helps the homeless, during the summer of 1986. That was considered a one-time arrangement, but Agran said it gave city officials reason to approach university officials with other ideas to help the homeless.

“Based on that favorable experience, we thought we might try to work with UCI again,” Agran said.

Sylvia Easton, a member of the Ad Hoc Coalition for the Homeless, said the group has discussed placing mobile homes on university-owned land. She said grants from the Department of Housing and Urban Development would be available to buy the mobile homes.

Easton also said any temporary housing project begun on campus, if UCI approves, would be geared to returning the homeless “back into the mainstream.

“We would try to provide re-training or whatever it takes for them to get on their own. We don’t want to circulate them back into the streets,” she said.

Easton, whose husband is a political science professor at UCI, also said the university could gain recognition by instituting on-campus programs to help the homeless. The university could “test empirically” those programs it might develop, she said.

“It would give UCI an opportunity to break new ground in dealing with the homeless issue,” Easton said.

Although Irvine Temporary Housing is not involved in negotiations with UCI to house homeless people on campus, one director said any program developed with the university would be a positive step in alleviating the homeless problem in the city.

“Indications look good that there could be some kind of affiliation (with UCI),” said Roy Werner. “But this is only a kernel of an idea which has not germinated yet.”