When it comes to housing, the South Bay is hard on homeless people trying to get back on their feet. Emergency and transitional shelters are scarce. So is low-cost rental housing--widely considered the key to reducing homelessness. In the end many people have... : NOWHERE TO GO

Patricia Hedberg, her husband, Eric, and their two children became temporarily homeless last spring when the three-bedroom house they were renting in Manhattan Beach was put up for sale to make way for development.

Unable to afford first and last month’s rent for another house or apartment, the Hedbergs lived for months in a cheap but dismal motel. They finally found space in a San Pedro homeless shelter, where they saved enough cash from Eric’s $350-a-week salary to secure a one-bedroom apartment nearby in March.

Hedberg, a 26-year resident of Manhattan Beach, says her family will probably have to move out of the South Bay to find less cramped quarters: “The rents here are just too high. It’s sad, but we just can’t afford it.”

When it comes to housing, the South Bay is hostile to homeless people trying to get back on their feet. Emergency and transitional shelters are scarce. So is low-cost rental housing--widely considered the key to reducing homelessness.

A prime cause is the real estate boom in the area, which has steadily driven up property values--and rents--since the early ‘80s, experts say. According to the city of Los Angeles’ rent stabilization division, the median advertised rents in Wilmington, Harbor City and San Pedro rose 169.2% during the period 1978-89.

Officials estimate that rent increases in the South Bay’s affluent beach cities have been at least that high.

Another problem is the reluctance of many cities to significantly enlarge the stock of low-cost housing for the working poor and fixed-income earners.

In 1980, for instance, Torrance decided to end its participation in a federally financed community development program rather than obey a requirement that some of the grant money be used to build low-income housing.

From 1985 until late last year, Hawthorne fought an unsuccessful court battle to prevent the state-financed construction of low-income rental units for predominantly minority residents displaced by the Century Freeway project.

Some elected officials, citing the intensity of local real estate speculation, say there is little that government can do to make the South Bay more accommodating to low-income earners. They argue that the sky-high land costs have made large-scale housing programs far too expensive for taxpayers.

“This is becoming a community for the affluent only, and I don’t like to see that,” said Torrance Mayor Katy Geissert. “But the market pressure is just too great. . . . Land is just too expensive.”

Others, however, charge that South Bay cities are deliberately ignoring the need for shelters and low-cost housing, reluctant to undermine the upscale image that has helped keep local property values climbing.

“You would think people would be willing to address this in a more assertive way,” said Amanda Aldrich, a housing specialist for Crossroads, a nonprofit Redondo Beach group serving the mentally ill. “They’re not. The haves simply want to have.”

From the point of view of the homeless, the South Bay’s most immediate drawback is a shortage of shelters.

There are 14 shelters in the area for narrow groups of homeless such as battered women and the mentally ill. But homeless organizations list just two emergency shelters available to a wide array of homeless--the Beacon Light Mission in Wilmington, a 28-bed facility serving adult males, and a cold-weather shelter operated by the Salvation Army at the National Guard Armory in Inglewood that is open to adult men and women.

The armory, which can accommodate more than 100 homeless, opens its doors only if the temperature dips below 40 degrees--or below 50 degrees when there is at least a 50% chance of rain.

Nor does the South Bay offer much in the way of transitional shelters, which can give residents time to accumulate cash for deposits on permanent housing.

There are at least nine such facilities in the area. But, except for two--a three-trailer shelter operated by the city of Gardena and the 17-unit Harbor Interfaith Shelter in San Pedro--all offer special services to limited clientele, such as the mentally ill or recovering alcoholics.

“There’s a real vacuum in shelters between (San Pedro) and Venice,” said David Christiansen, director of Harbor Interfaith Shelter in San Pedro. “The South Bay is really a void.”

All of which adds up to intense demand for the few shelter beds that exist. Sister Michele Morris of the House of Yahweh, a soup kitchen in Lawndale, said: “It’s the most frustrating thing. They ask for shelter every day, and you call and there isn’t space.”

More worrisome in the long run is the scarcity of low-cost housing, according to Morris and others who work with the homeless. Many homeless have fixed incomes or salaries but cannot find appropriately priced housing.

In many areas of the South Bay, the low-cost housing shortage is becoming more acute as upscale development spreads, experts say. A leading example is the 174-unit Southwinds Apartments. By far the largest rent-controlled apartment complex in San Pedro, Southwinds was shut last year and is being torn down to make way for luxury condominiums.

Though Southwinds residents got relocation assistance, many South Bay residents who are displaced by upscale development--particularly renters of single-family homes--do not. Some become homeless.

Cheri Miller of the Harbor Interfaith Shelter says there has been a marked increase in the number of working families seeking help from her organization.

“New populations are being snatched down into homelessness,” Miller said. “It’s people with money moving in and displacing people with less money.”

Sometimes these families and other homeless fall into what Gary Blasi of the Legal Aid Foundation of Los Angeles calls the “sleazy hotel circuit”--single-room lodging for a low-income clientele. Unable to afford deposits on apartments, they have a hard time finding permanent housing.

Many such low-budget hotels accept vouchers that Los Angeles County issues to 6,000 homeless people each month while their applications for county general relief are being processed. Worth $16 a night in most cases, the vouchers cover stays of up to two weeks.

Of the nearly 100 hotels that applied to take part in the county’s voucher program during the month of March, 16 were located in the South Bay. The county inspects them all to ensure they meet health and safety standards, said Carol Matsui, spokeswoman for the county’s Department of Public and Social Services.

But Blasi and others say the hotels, while cheap, cannot be considered acceptable for anything but the briefest stays--particularly in the case of homeless families. They usually consist of one-room units that share a hallway bathroom and do not have kitchen facilities. Many, experts say, are extremely run-down.

“Over the years, I have seen a number of these hotels and they tend to be about as bad as housing gets,” Blasi said. “These places are to Motel 6 as Motel 6 is to the Bonaventure.”

In the South Bay, as in many parts of Los Angeles County, low-cost alternatives are in short supply. Few know this better than Amanda Aldrich, who says she has trouble finding apartments for Crossroads clients for less than $500 a month.

“We’re dealing with a housing market that, to put it mildly, is out of control,” she said. Aldrich points out that most of her clients live on fixed income amounting to $600 a month. “We’re trying to find the golden needle in the haystack, which is the housing these people can afford.”

To complicate matters, the federal government has slowed its low-income housing efforts in recent years. According to the nonprofit National Low Income Housing Coalition in Washington, federal programs now provide housing for only 80,000 new low-income recipients a year compared to 300,000 new recipients annually in the 1970s.

The effects are apparent in several South Bay communities. In Hawthorne, for instance, the waiting lists for federal rental assistance have swelled to 3,900, according to Carol Norman, an official in Hawthorne’s housing office and a Lawndale councilwoman. Inglewood reports 3,000 on its federal rental assistance waiting lists.

Despite the demand, the federal government is only allotting Hawthorne and Inglewood 20 additional apartment subsidies a year, according to Norman and Inglewood housing director Art Waller. “Since the federal government has not come forth with many new units, we have to run the program on attrition,” Norman said. “We basically only get new units when people die or leave the community.”

The federal commitment to low-cost housing appears unlikely to increase.

“Unless there’s a radical change in the White House and on Capitol Hill, we’re not going to see a restoration of the pre-Reagan era housing budgets,” said Richard West of the National Low Income Housing Coalition. “More and more is going to be expected of local governments and (nonprofit groups).”

Locally, however, few cities seem to give low-cost housing a high priority. The problem was underscored in a study of low-income housing construction in 488 California cities released last month by the California Coalition for Rural Housing. The study lists the low-income housing needs for 1984-89 that were calculated by the Southern California Assn. of Governments, a regional planning agency, and included in each city’s general plan. The needs were compared to the number of new units each city actually built, with either federal, state or local funds.

In the South Bay, Inglewood built 177 units, even though its General Plan only called for 152. Lomita put up 150 units--97 more than its 53-unit target. But those were the bright spots. Torrance built just 113, or 17%, of the 678 units called for in its General Plan, and Redondo Beach constructed only 28, or 6%, of 438.

The study did not say how much of the low-cost housing was earmarked for families and how much was for the elderly.

Carson, Hermosa Beach, Manhattan Beach, Palos Verdes Estates, Rancho Palos Verdes and Rolling Hills Estates provided no new low-income housing units at all--though, collectively, their general plans called for 1,037.

Improving the South Bay’s performance is unlikely to be easy. Numerous South Bay elected officials flatly reject the notion that their cities have an obligation to encourage the construction of low-cost housing.

Rancho Palos Verdes Mayor Mel Hughes said he and many other residents of his city are already “doing our part” by housing their adult-aged children who cannot afford homes of their own.

Hughes says that not all communities should have to have low-income housing, just as not all communities are obliged to have oil refineries or large shopping centers.

“Not every community should have to be the same as the other,” he said. “It doesn’t make sense to address every community in the same way.” Palos Verdes Estates Mayor Ruth Gralow agrees: “Personally, I don’t see the place for it here. . . . I don’t know where we’d put it.”

Norman, an advocate for low-cost housing on the Lawndale City Council, says such sentiment is prevalent in the South Bay: “People want to have neighbors of high income. That’s just the way it is. It’s the NIMBY factor: Not In My Back Yard.”

For Hedberg, the issue boils down to a sense of embarrassment and betrayal. Interviewed while she was living at Harbor Interfaith Shelter, Hedberg said she is embittered that when she and her husband needed it, the government was not there.

“We pay taxes and what does it go for?” she said, her voice quavering in anger. “Certainly not for helping the homeless. We paid our taxes all these years and this is where it got us.”

SHELTERS IN THE SOUTH BAY

CARSON

Carson Shelter. 16 beds for battered women. 30-day maximum stay. Appointment required. 549-1375.

GARDENA

City of Gardena Human Services. 3 trailers. Transitional housing for homeless men, women and families. 6-month maximum stay. 1651 W. 162nd St. Appointment suggested. 217-9574.

HAWTHORNE

The Wayback Inn. 28-bed resident recovery program for alcoholic men and women. 6-month maximum stay. Appointment required. 12917 Cerise Ave. 675-4431.

Patterns. 23-bed residential recovery program for alcoholic mothers and their children. 1-year maximum stay. Appointment required. 2501 W. El Segundo Blvd. 756-1350.

HERMOSA BEACH

1736 Family Crisis Center. 6 emergency shelter beds for homeless youths for up to 2 weeks and up to 10 beds for battered women and their children for up to 1 month. Transitional housing also available for battered women and their children for up to 6 months. Appointment required. 379-3620.

INGLEWOOD

National Guard Armory. Emergency shelter for homeless men and women during cold weather. Number of beds varies depending on demand. 111 Grosvenor St. (800) 548-6047.

Excelsior House. 6 beds for the chronically mentally ill. 14-day maximum stay. Referrals only. 923 Inglewood Blvd. 671-9005.

LAWNDALE

Transitional Living Center. 9 beds. Transitional housing and treatment for chronically mentally ill. 4-month maximum stay. Appointment required. 16119 Prairie Ave. 542-4825.

LONG BEACH

The Flossie Lewis Center. 15 beds for participants in center’s 90-day program for recovering alcoholic and chemically dependent women. 15 transitional housing beds for up to 1 year for women who have completed the 90-day program. 1112 Locust Ave. 435-7350.

Long Beach Family Center. Up to 60 emergency shelter beds for families, senior citizens and disabled persons. Address is confidential. Must be referred by Traveler’s Aid (432-3485), Catholic Charities (591-1351) or the Disabled Resource Center (427-1000).

REDONDO BEACH

Crossroads. 6 beds. Transitional housing for the mentally ill. 1-year maximum stay. Appointment required. 543-5354.

SAN PEDRO

Harbor Interfaith Shelter. 17 apartment units. Transitional housing for homeless families. 60-day limit. Appointment required. 831-0589.

Harbor View House. 10 emergency shelter beds for mentally ill men and women. Maximum stay 2 weeks. Referrals only. 547-3341.

House of Hope Foundation. 6 beds for recovering alcoholic women. Maximum stay 90 days. Appointment required. 831-9411.

Rainbow Services. 18 emergency shelter beds for battered women and their children. Maximum stay: 45 days. 547-9343.

Serenity House. 6 beds for recovering alcoholic women. Maximum stay 6 months. Appointment required. 831-6949.

TORRANCE

Gratitude Retreat. 22 beds for recovering alcoholic men. Maximum stay up to 3 months with extension possible. Appointment required. 1729 Cabrillo Ave. 618-9173.

WILMINGTON

Beacon Light Mission. 28 beds. Emergency shelter for alcohol- and drug-free homeless men 18 and over. Limit 7 nights every 3 months. 830-7063.

SOUTH BAY’S LOW-INCOME HOUSING

A survey by the California Coalition for Rural Housing compares the low-cost housing needs spelled out in each city’s general plan and the number of low-cost units actually built in 1985-89. The chart shows the results for South Bay cities and the city of Los Angeles.

City Units Units % Units Needed Produced Produced Avalon 36 NI Carson 495 0 0% El Segundo 120 96 80% Gardena 296 200 68% Hawthorne 459 75 16% Hermosa Beach 147 0 0% Inglewood 152 177 116% Lawndale 115 56 49% Lomita 53 150 283% Los Angeles 27,270 13,951 51% Manhattan Beach 159 0 0% Palos Verdes Estates 78 0 0% Rancho Palos Verdes 156 0 0% Redondo Beach 436 28 6% Rolling Hills 2 0 0% Rolling Hills Estates 18 NI Torrance 678 113 17%

NI: No Information available