72% Fewer Homeless Use New Shelter : Families: The Valley’s cold-weather shelter program uses an austere armory. The program had offered motel rooms.

Despite 38 nights of bitter-cold temperatures in the San Fernando Valley this winter, only a handful of homeless families have sought refuge in a new city-sponsored shelter in Sylmar, drawing criticism from some homeless advocates who say the program is ineffective.

On two frigid nights this month no one showed up. On average, about eight mothers, fathers and children sleep on cots in the sprawling gymnasium-size Sylmar National Guard Armory each night.

The nearly empty armory represents a 72% decrease in the number of homeless served this winter and results from a major cost-cutting change in the emergency cold-weather shelter program in the San Fernando Valley.

Last year homeless families were given a free motel room when night temperatures dropped to 40 degrees. The program attracted hundreds each night. This year the city opened the doors to an austere armory, which has proved to be a far less desirable alternative for families.

Between Nov. 1, 1988, and Feb. 5, 1989, 10,298 people were housed--mainly in motels--on 42 nights. During the same period a year later, 2,887 were housed on 38 nights in two shelters. The Sylmar family shelter has housed only 308 parents and children. Another armory shelter exclusively for adults in Van Nuys has attracted an average of about 65 each night it has been open.

“The bottom line is that the family shelter program isn’t working and is not effective,” said John Suggs of the Los Angeles Countywide Coalition for the Homeless. “This is not an indication that the homeless population is decreasing. It’s a clear indication that the program is not addressing the basic needs of the homeless population.”

Gov. George Deukmejian allowed municipalities to use the state’s armories as shelters for the first time last year after four people died of hypothermia in Los Angeles. Before that, the city opened park recreation centers to the homeless.

Last year families--especially single mothers with young children--were offered vouchers for motel rooms because officials did not believe it was appropriate to house mothers and children in the same facility with adults, many of whom often suffer from mental illness. In addition, boisterous children often angered adults.

City officials and some who work with the homeless say the change was needed to improve flaws in the previous program. The motel voucher program was open to abuse because it was difficult to prove if a family was truly homeless or simply taking advantage of a free night in a motel. Also, social service workers were not able to offer food and counseling to families who “disappeared” into motel rooms.

Capt. John Purdell of the Van Nuys Corps of the Salvation Army was critical of the motel program because families were often sent to neighborhoods plagued with drug trafficking and prostitution. He said he believes many families reject the armory operation because of strict rules that prohibit drinking and smoking.

“The city is providing a clean, supervised shelter, and many homeless I’m sure are saying ‘thanks but no thanks,’ ” Purdell said. “I don’t mean to sound uncaring. But many homeless cannot cope with such regulations.”

Homeless advocates and city officials both cite several reasons why the shelter program is failing to attract homeless families:

* The armory is difficult to find, hidden from street view by industrial buildings in an eastern corner of Sylmar.

* Homeless parents are afraid to bring their children to a government-sponsored shelter, fearful that authorities will take their children away.

* Families are forced to leave the armory between 6 and 6:30 a.m.

* The shelter program operates sporadically, depending on strict temperature guidelines. This makes it difficult for a family to know when it will be cold enough to open.

One homeless couple with five young children who stayed in the shelter Tuesday said they were thankful for the warm room at night, but were jarred awake and sent out in the dawn cold with nowhere to go.

“They woke us up at 5:30 and told us we had to pack our bags and leave,” said James Enriquez, 26. “It’s real hard. Where are you supposed to go with five kids and no money at that hour? It’s still cold out there.”

Toni Reines, co-director of the California Homeless Coalition, said the armories do not provide a setting that works for most families.

“They don’t know when the program will be open. They have to be back out in the cold at 6 a.m. with their kids,” Reines said. “It’s obvious that it is not as desirable as being in a private motel room. People would rather sleep in their cars.”

Los Angeles emergency shelter policy mandates that the city open shelters for the homeless when the temperature drops to 40 degrees or less at night and to 50 degrees or less when rain is forecast.

The Valley, shielded from warm ocean wind by the Santa Monica Mountains, has been hit with freezing or near-freezing temperatures 38 nights this winter. The rest of the city, which has recorded temperatures of 40 degrees or lower on only nine nights--is served by a second family shelter, in Venice.

Although criticized by some homeless advocates as an arbitrary cutoff, city officials defend the 40-degree requirement.

“If we don’t have a standard then it becomes a subjective thing on when we activate the shelters,” said Karen Patterson of the Community Development Department.

Nonetheless, city officials say, they are concerned with the low attendance at the Sylmar armory. But because the program ends March 31, they are unlikely to change the program this late in the season.

“Obviously, we need to think of a program that works better. That’s what I’m hoping to do next year,” said Nancy Bianconi, director of housing operations for L.A. Family Housing, the nonprofit group that operates the shelter.

In the meantime, homeless advocates say, they will continue to push for winter-long activation of shelters and elimination of the 40-degree rule.

The 40-degree cutoff aside, some city officials are not eager to return to the motel-voucher program. Robert Vilmur, the city’s homeless projects coordinator, stressed that the armory program is superior to motels because the city can provide dinner and breakfast. A public health nurse is on call for medical needs, and social service workers are available for counseling.

In addition to providing more comprehensive services, the shelter program is less expensive. The cost of housing a person in a shelter is between $9 and $10; the cost of putting them up in a motel averages $25 a night. Last year $719,000 in city and federal emergency housing funds were spent citywide on motel and shelter expenses. Expenditures so far this year have not yet been tabulated.

The armory also eliminates what some suspect was widespread abuse of the motel program, said Jim Bird of Better Valley Services, the nonprofit social service organization that distributed the free vouchers last year.

Bird said he and his workers suspected that people living in overcrowded apartments would seek motel vouchers for a respite. Also, families living in motels because they could not afford apartments would ask for vouchers to save money.

“There was no way whether we could determine if people were homeless or not,” Bird said. “The armory pretty much screens out the marginally homeless. The shelter is not an incentive that draws people who are doubled up in apartments, living in substandard housing or in cars.”

But for the Enriquez family, it was all they had Tuesday night. Their experience with the shelter exemplifies the strengths and weaknesses of the program, officials said.

The family--James, Linda and their five children, ages 1 to 8--exhausted their savings Monday night after living nearly a month in a motel. Enriquez said he had been laid off from his job with a moving company. Money was tight. So when cockroach and plumbing problems were not eliminated, he withheld rent and his family was evicted, he said.

Without a car, the family packed their clothes in plastic sacks and spent Tuesday at a Van Nuys Boulevard coffee shop while James begged for quarters to make telephone calls to find shelter.

He called a Van Nuys church group named Loaves and Fishes and was given a toll-free number--800-548-6047--for cold-weather shelter information. The operator directed him to Van Nuys City Hall, where a special bus would pick them up and take them to the shelter.

For three hours in the dark, with an icy wind howling, the family sat on the steps of City Hall.

They didn’t know they had missed the bus.

About 8 p.m., Enriquez said, a man offered to give them a ride to the shelter.

“We drove around the street for about half an hour but couldn’t find the place. The man was getting mad,” he said. Then they noticed a small, hand-painted sign against a light pole with an arrow pointing toward “armory shelter.”

“It was warm inside; they were real nice,” Enriquez said. His family was fed soup and sandwiches. “I don’t know where we would have gone without it.”

In the morning, lights were flicked on at 5:30 a.m, causing the children to cry.

Then, at 6:15 a.m., after a breakfast of fruit-flavored juice and doughnuts, the family was told they had to board a yellow school bus that would take them back to the streets.

The older children, bundled in jackets and hats, carried their belongings in backpacks. Linda held a bag of disposable diapers and a sack of sandwiches from the shelter.

They stayed on the bus as long as they could, finally getting off on Van Nuys Boulevard near Parthenia Street. Enriquez said they intended to go to a church to ask for some money. Then they would walk to a Laundromat. The heat from the dryers would warm the children, he reasoned.

“I wish my wife and children could have stayed at the shelter so I could go look for a job,” Enriquez said. “I can’t leave them alone in a park or something all day.”

“But I’m glad we could stay there. We won’t miss the bus tonight, we’re going to be at the stop right at 5,” he said. “I hope it’s cold again.”

But Wednesday night the shelter doors were closed.

The temperature in the Valley was 41 degrees.

COLD WEATHER SHELTER PROGRAM

Nov. 1, 1988- Nov. 1, 1989 Feb. 5, 1989 Feb. 5, 1990 Total sheltered in San Fernando Valley 10,298 2,887 Sheltered in armories 3,038 2,789 Shetered in motels 7,260 98 Number of cold nights 42 38

Source: Los Angeles Community Development Department