Armory Defends Homeless From Cold : Shelter: Popularity of the county program has grown at Inglewood facility. But critics say rigid weather guidelines limit its effectiveness.

Vicente Figueroa knows what it is to be cold. He knows the creeping sensation as cold invades first his fingers and then his arms and then his neck. He knows that on cold and rainy nights, he is small enough to curl up inside a garbage bag to stay dry, if not warm.

During the worst of February’s freezing weather, however, Figueroa got to stay inside something a lot warmer than a garbage bag.

Figueroa, 31, joined more than 80 other men and a handful of women on a recent night at the Inglewood National Guard Armory, where the Salvation Army provided each with a cot, a hygiene kit, basic medical care and a hot meal.

Crowded and impersonal as it was, it was far better than another frigid night on the streets.

“What else would we want?” Figueroa asked, as the South Bay’s only cold weather shelter program opened for its 12th night this winter. “We got everything here. Good people. Food. A shower. . . . I hate sleeping on the streets, man.”

Figueroa has been on the streets for more than two years, since the Redondo Beach restaurant where he worked as a cook burned to the ground, leaving him jobless. Some of his friends have been homeless for a lot longer than that.

If there were shelters available every night, they would stay in them, people at the armory said. As it is, they are grateful for the help they do get when the mercury dips.

Mary Agnes Erlandson, program site coordinator at St. Margaret’s Center in Lennox, said the $600,000 countywide program springs from a very basic concept.

“This is primarily to save lives,” Erlandson said, “. . . but no one sees this as any kind of real (long-term) solution.”

Under the rules of the 3-year-old program, any of six National Guard armories scattered throughout the county are opened to the homeless when forecasters predict that temperatures will dip below 40 degrees, or below 50 degrees if there is a 50% chance of rain.

Whereas armories in the San Fernando and San Gabriel valleys remain open almost continuously in mid-winter, conditions at the Inglewood armory--which joined the program just a few months ago--have met the requirements only the 12 times.

The county has set up a toll-free hot line--(800) 548-6047--to tell people which shelters are open. Decisions are based on weather forecasts released at 11 a.m. each day.

Activists for the homeless say they are frustrated by the strict nature of the regulations.

“If it’s supposed to be 42 or 41 (degrees), no, we’re not open,” said Lt. Lee Lescano from the Salvation Army’s Inglewood branch. “There is no wind chill factored into that. . . . But once we’re activated, we’re open for three nights, regardless of weather. At least there is some consistency there.”

When the program first began, workers said it was difficult to attract the area’s homeless.

“The ones who live in Alondra Park, they’ve been there a long time and, unfortunately, that is . . . their home,” Lescano said. “Unless it’s real cold or they’re real hungry, this is not something they seek out.”

But the program has quickly swelled from an initial response of about 20 people each night to more than 50.

Most of those who come to the Inglewood armory are from the Hawthorne-Lawndale-Lennox area. Homeless people from the harbor area tend to use an armory in Long Beach, according to a spokeswoman for the hot line.

Recently, the Inglewood armory also began taking overflow people from the West Hollywood area, officials said.