Church Gets OK on 2 Trailers for Homeless

Two more city-owned trailers for the homeless will be moved onto the property of a Van Nuys church, making the San Fernando Valley home to 10 of the 102 shelters, officials said Monday.

The Rev. Glenn Hetland, pastor of Central Lutheran Church, said he was pleased because “we thought we could use our facilities to do some good in the community.”

Los Angeles Zoning Administrator Jon Perica gave preliminary approval Jan. 20 for the trailers to be placed at the church at 6425 Tyrone Ave. Under city planning laws, neighbors had until Monday to appeal the decision, but none of them did.

Hetland said he did not know when the church would be ready to receive the two-bedroom trailers.

Meanwhile, officials said six of the eight trailers placed at the San Fernando Gardens housing project in Pacoima a year ago have been repaired and relationships between project residents and the trailers’ tenants seem to be on the mend. The trailers suffered substantial vandalism during their first few months at the housing project, officials said.

All is not rosy in the trailer placement story, however, as a neighborhood controversy continues about two trailers requested by the Sepulveda Unitarian-Universalist Society at 9550 Haskell Ave.

The trailers are part of a city program to help families get off the streets by providing them up to six months of free housing so they can save enough to pay for permanent lodging. At the request of Mayor Tom Bradley, Los Angeles bought 102 trailers in 1987 from a Utah construction company that had used them for housing workers.

Beth Bergman, Bradley’s administrative assistant, said all but four of the trailers have been spoken for, but several are in limbo because of neighborhood opposition.

The city was able to place trailers on public property, such as the city Housing Authority-owned San Fernando Gardens, without community approval. But because churches and other parcels of private land are not usually zoned for temporary residences, Bergman said, trailer proposals for those sites have to be reviewed by a city zoning administrator who considers comments from neighbors.

Letters about the Unitarian-Universalist church’s desire to place two trailers on its grounds, sent to a handful of immediate neighbors, drew a crowd of more than 20 angry residents at a Jan. 11 meeting. Zoning officials are still considering that application, and neighbors have said that if it is approved they will take their case to the Board of Zoning Appeals.

Both Valley churches said they plan to ask local social service agencies to screen prospective trailer tenants to try to avoid problems experienced in San Fernando Gardens.

The city claims an 84% success rate with the trailers, Bergman said, with 117 families citywide having found jobs or saved enough from public assistance checks to move out of the trailers and into permanent housing.