Trailer Slated for Care, Counseling of Homeless

In the first such effort of its kind in Los Angeles, city officials plan to transport hundreds of homeless people from across the San Fernando Valley to a trailer in Van Nuys for counseling, health care and other services.

The 60-foot trailer will be set up from Aug. 23 to Sept. 16 in the Salvation Army parking lot at 14197 Victory Blvd., according to Bob Vilmur, the city’s coordinator for homeless projects.

After Sept. 16, the trailer will be moved to another location in the city, where it will operate for one month before being moved again. Its next location has not been decided, officials said Friday.

Plans call for homeless people to be offered rides in vans from parks and other areas where they congregate. After receiving service at the trailer, they will be returned to the spots where they were picked up, if social service agencies are unable to find them shelter, officials said.

No one will be forced to come to the trailer, Vilmur said.

He said the trailer will house representatives of the county departments of Mental Health and Social Services, the state Employment Development Department and the Social Security and Veterans administrations. They will offer counseling, health care, job information and applications for welfare, Social Security and veterans’ benefits.

The city previously has picked up homeless people and transported them to recreation centers during cold weather. But Vilmur said the program, which is voluntary, will be the city’s first effort to bring people to services.

Beginning next week, city parks and recreation staff will hand out flyers to homeless people in Valley parks, advising them of the outreach program, Vilmur said.

Similar services are available to the homeless now, Vilmur said, but officials often have trouble reaching them.

“What we’re doing is two-fold: one, we’re solving their transportation problem; secondly, we’re concentrating many of those services at one location,” he said.

Vilmur estimated that there are 33,000 homeless people in the city.

Councilman Joel Wachs, who represents the area around the Salvation Army location, said the proposal “sounds fine” to him.

“Someone’s got to do something about the homeless,” Wachs said.

Last year, the Salvation Army in Van Nuys assisted thousands of homeless people, “and we didn’t get one complaint from a neighbor,” said Capt. John Purdell, the organization’s commanding officer in Van Nuys.

“It’s just an adjunct to what we are already doing,” he said of the outreach program.