Shelter for Homeless to Shut Down : Housing: Group operating warehouse is forced to close because of money problems and concerns over type of building used. Facility served women and children.

Beginning today, the homeless women and children of Skid Row will have one less place to go for help.

A warehouse on South Alameda Street, operated since May of last year by a homeless service group, People in Progress, is closing, the victim of too little money and substandard facilities.

The demise of the center, which offers refuge to indigent woman and children, has come in stages. For seven months, it was open around the clock. In January, because of dwindling funds, the shelter cut back to only day hours.

But because of concerns over the building’s structure, the shelter’s contracts with social services agencies were not renewed, said Cora Fullmore, an administrator with the Los Angeles County Department of Mental Health.

“I hate to hear they are closing their doors,” Fullmore said. “But the site they were using is inappropriate for the kind of services they were providing.”

Shelter spokesmen say they have the same concerns about the building.

“We understand that the city has certain standards,” said Nehimia Buttler, manager of the shelter. “They have a certain program they have to adhere to.”

But for those who have relied on the center, a warehouse roof overhead is better than none.

As rain pounded on the warehouse’s corrugated tin back wall Tuesday, Edna Wise, 35, a consistent visitor to the shelter, said: “People ask me, ‘What are you going to do?’ I tell them I don’t think about it. Take the next step, I guess.”

What’s the next step?

“That’s the point,” she said. “I don’t know.”

The People in Progress staff will begin raising money for another site--one closer to meeting city housing standards than the brick and tin, cement-floored, former produce warehouse near 4th Street.

The center, with 70 cots and three cribs, often operated beyond capacity during the months it stayed open 24 hours a day, said People in Progress spokesman Tom Mayo. There are between 6,000 and 15,000 homeless women and children downtown, according to county officials and shelter workers.

One of the few shelters with a “non-judgmental” acceptance policy, the center accommodated all women, including those who were intoxicated or mentally ill, staff member Annette Jackson said. And it was the only center with that policy that also took in women with children, she said.