Idea of Using Hangar as Shelter Was Case of Any Port in a Storm : Homeless: Not a single church or relief group the city contacted in the Valley was willing to lease a building. Some say the area is ignoring the problem.

With oil stains on the floor and a gaping hole in one wall, the cavernous, corrugated metal airplane hangar at the Van Nuys Airport was not an obvious site for a homeless shelter under the city’s cold weather shelter program.

Homeless advocates working with the city turned to the building in desperation because, unlike other areas in Los Angeles, they could find no religious institutions or community centers in the San Fernando Valley willing to open their doors to a large number of homeless people.

The reason--say city officials, church leaders and homeless advocates--is a combination of poor communication, a failure to recognize homelessness as a Valley problem, concerns over security and liability, and fears of upsetting homeowners.

“I think it’s a mixture of reasons,” said Nancy Bianconi, director of the L.A. Family Housing Corp., which is running the shelter under contract with the city. “They are fearful of the population they would be serving, it’s expensive to operate and a lot of the churches felt overwhelmed by this type of operation.”

The converted hangar opened Friday night after city crews patched the hole in the wall, turned on the heat and brought in a phone, portable showers, stove, refrigerator and other items needed to create a kitchen.

The city’s search for a Valley site for a homeless shelter began in earnest the first week in October after the National Guard, which had opened armories periodically as temporary shelters in past years, decided it would set a bad precedent to let them be used for 60 consecutive nights, as the city requested this year.

Rebuffed, the city Department of Human Services sent 1,100 flyers to social service agencies and organizations throughout the city, asking for sites to lease as homeless shelters.

There were no responses from the Valley or the Westside, said Bob Vilmur, coordinator of city programs for the homeless. Elsewhere in the city, 12 churches and nonprofit community centers offered to lease space to the city.

Vilmur said the mailing list used for the flyers consisted primarily of organizations that in the past have collaborated with the city or received city support. That approach overlooked many Valley community organizations and churches, some of whose representatives said this week that they did not know the city had been seeking shelter space.

“If the issue had come to us and to other churches, we would have responded,” said James V. Lyles, pastor of First United Methodist Church of Pacoima and president of the Ministers Fellowship of the Greater San Fernando Valley. “The word never came here, and as far as I know it never came to any of the 40 churches I am affiliated with,” he added.

Barry Smedberg, executive director of the Valley Interfaith Council, which represents more than 250 churches, synagogues and other religious institutions, said he also was unaware that the city had been searching for a shelter site.

Vilmur defended the city’s methods. “There is no way that we could have canvassed every temple or church that we might have,” he said. But he added that city officials did speak to many organized meetings of religious leaders.

Also, the L.A. Family Housing Corp. individually contacted about 30 churches, synagogues and owners of industrial buildings, Bianconi said. All of them declined to lease space to the city for use as a shelter, she said.

Bianconi said those contacted expressed concerns about security, liability for damage to their buildings and the possibility of alienating neighbors.

“A suburban community doesn’t have an understanding of what the homeless population is like in the Valley,” she said. “You are not dealing with a Skid Row population. They are not usually seriously impaired with drugs or alcohol. . . . A lot of fears are unfounded.” Bianconi would not identify the organizations she had called. Some of those she spoke with asked to remain anonymous. She said she did not believe it would be fair to point a finger at the others.

Bianconi and Prescilla Ortiz, assistant coordinator of the city’s cold weather shelter program, said most area churches have not perceived homelessness as a chronic problem in the Valley and thus have never provided shelter.

“It’s not an area that they normally function in on a day-to-day basis,” Ortiz said. “They have never found themselves in the position of providing continuing assistance to homeless persons.”

Smedberg said Valley churches making their first forays into sheltering the homeless might have been intimidated by the numbers involved.

“One-hundred and fifty people--that’s a pretty big request,” he said. “If you had talked about a smaller number, you would have gotten a lot more churches willing to do it.”

Smedberg said Valley religious institutions are trying to address the issue.

For example, he said, his organization runs a program to pay for homeless families to stay in hotels or motels for several nights. During their stays, the families are provided with counseling to assist them with their problems. Also, he said, four Valley congregations have just established a joint program to provide shelter, food and counseling to 12 people for eight weeks beginning in January.

John Suggs, executive director of the Coalition for the Homeless, which operates throughout Los Angeles County, said he attributed some of the reluctance to a NIMBY, or “not in my back yard,” reaction among some church leaders and residents who live near the churches. “People don’t want to open up their communities to provide shelter to the homeless.”

Left with no other options, Bianconi said her staff decided to examine the former Air National Guard that had been occupied by a unit that relocated to Point Mugu in 1988.

Bianconi admitted that she was less than overjoyed when she saw the hangar for the first time. Although it is insulated and has central heating, it had a hole in one wall to allow the tails of planes to remain outside.

But when they toured all the buildings on the site--including several barracks and the administration building--they found that the hangar was the only one large enough to house 150 people.

“We didn’t want to go into a hangar, but we said, ‘Oh, God, lets make this work,’ ” Bianconi said.

And work it will, the shelter’s staff said, although they admitted that there are some problems--such as lack of sufficient kitchen space--that cannot be solved.

The hangar has two small enclosed offices that Mike Childress, the manager of the shelter, said he plans to use as a separate sleeping area for women and for a small television lounge.

Childress said he has no qualms about the site.

“When you are talking about taking people off the streets, it doesn’t really matter what the building was used for before,” he said.