Cities’ Aid Asked to Run Armories for Homeless

From the City Hall in Mission Viejo to elementary schools and civic meetings in Brea, volunteers are passing the hat this month so that two National Guard armories can remain open for Orange County’s homeless.

The armories in Santa Ana and Fullerton have been used for the past three years as a place of warm refuge for up to 250 homeless people on cold, wintry nights. They are due to open again today with rain forecast.

Last summer, however, the Orange County Social Services Agency, which operates the armory-shelter program, sent an urgent plea for assistance to most of the cities in Orange County, saying it needed money and staff to continue operating the armories.

“We were running out of money, to be quite honest with you,” said Margaret Beck, manager of the county’s emergency-shelter program.

Although the county has been using two federal grants to defray the $66,000 annual costs in operating the shelters, the July letter to the cities point out that the grants do not cover site management and security. Security costs last year totaled about $15,000. Site management is provided by volunteers.

Sent to All Cities

“The problem of homelessness needs the commitment of all levels of government, as well as community organizations and individual citizens,” Larry M. Leaman, director of the County Social Services Agency, says in the letter to mayors.

The letter was sent to all cities in Orange County, with the exceptions of Dana Point, San Clemente, Laguna Beach, Los Alamitos, San Juan Capistrano and Villa Park.

Dottie Goehring, staff analyst in charge of the county’s homeless shelter program, explained that those cities either already had their own homeless shelter programs or had no significant homeless problem.

The county’s goal is to raise at least $15,000 this month from the cities and gain commitments for volunteers to staff the armories.

As of Friday, Beck said, the county making good progress achieving that goal, having received checks totaling $10,500 from the cities of Mission Viejo, Orange and Placentia. Volunteer staffing has been provided by the cities of Anaheim, Santa Ana and Cypress, and Brea is in the midst of a drive to raise $3,000, Beck added.

The Brea effort, spearheaded by a local church, has involved schools, churches, civic clubs and City Hall.

“We passed the hat at a recent Rotary Club meeting and one fellow said, ‘Here is a check for $50,’ ” said George Saunders, a First Baptist Church pastor who is coordinating the fund-raising effort.

Margo Mohn, manager of community services for Brea, said the city will also be launching a drive soon to collect donations from city employees.

“We’re optimistic that we will have a good response,” Mohn said.

So far, the biggest outpouring has come from the city of Orange, which donated $5,000. City officials elsewhere pledged to continue the assistance for as long as needed.

In his letter, Leaman says the armories could not operate as shelters without security guards posted to prevent trouble.

Last year, Anaheim offered its staff to help manage the Fullerton armory and Santa Ana provided city park rangers for security at its armory. This is the first year that the county has asked any other cities to help out.

Although the Santa Ana and Fullerton armories are able to house only a fraction of the county’s homeless, which is estimated at between 4,000 and 10,000, county officials said the buildings do provide critical shelter for “a significant number” of people who otherwise would have to sleep out in the cold.

The shelters are opened when temperatures are predicted to drop below 40 degrees or there is a 50% chance for rain.

“This program provides a relatively easy and inexpensive opportunity for local government agencies to demonstrate their concerns by working in coordination with local community organizations and volunteers,” Leaman says in his letter to the cities.