Center to Offer More Than Shelter : Homeless: The North Hollywood facility, featuring a school and private rooms, is designed to help families achieve self-sufficiency.

The homeless children were mystified by the long wooden poles that arrived recently at the partially constructed North Hollywood shelter.

When they were told that the poles were actually ballet practice barres that would be installed as part of the $1-million expansion of the Los Angeles Family Housing Corp. Valley Shelter at 7843 Lankershim Blvd., they could hardly contain their excitement.

In addition to ballet, the children would be instructed in other arts such as drama, dance and painting.

“It will be the School of Performing Arts for the homeless,” chuckled Nancy Bianconi, director of housing for the shelter in a reference to the New York school featured in the “Fame” movie and television series.

But the shelter, which will be renamed the Trudy and Norman Louis Valley Shelter when the expansion is completed in mid-August, will be much more. Officials call it a “state-of-the-art” facility that will be one of the only shelters in the Los Angeles area able to assist homeless families with children.

The original shelter, which opened in a converted motel in 1986, will be completely refurbished and landscaped. A new three-story, 20,000-square-foot complex will be able to house 200 children and adults in rooms with private bathrooms and ceiling fans.

In addition, the expanded shelter will feature a new kitchen and dining room, a medical clinic, food and clothing banks and an administrative office for the shelter and the Los Angeles Family Housing Corp., a nonprofit housing development organization dedicated to providing housing for homeless and low-income families.

One of the most distinctive features of the shelter will be a one-room school that will be overseen by volunteers and active teachers from the Los Angeles Unified School District. District officials said the school, designed for 25 children from the first through the sixth grades, is one of the only schools to be located at a shelter.

“Of the kids who come in here, 90% of them are depressed,” Bianconi said. “They’re destructive or withdrawn. They no longer have something to hold onto; they’re seeing their parents fall apart emotionally.

“Then, often, when our homeless kids go to their neighborhood school, they are taunted by the other kids who say: ‘You are from the shelter. You’re poor, you’re dirty.’ If they get some training, self-confidence and self-esteem here, they’ll be more able to cope with the normal school system after three months.”

The school will also have at least two computers so that children will learn skills that will enable them to keep up with other children when they enter the public school system, she said.

Bianconi said she has long wanted to institute a performing arts program at a homeless shelter, but felt that priorities had to be established.

“I’ve always felt it was so important that children be informed and enriched by the arts,” she said. “But before we could provide that in a homeless shelter, we had to set up the basic survival services first--clothing, food, etc. But anyone living with the basics cannot live well just on that level. It’s important to improve their lifestyle, too.”

Because of the school, the fine arts programs and the design of the shelter, the center--named after longtime benefactors of the organization--will be a landmark in the Los Angeles Family Housing Corp. system. The corporation operates shelters with 250 beds in North Hollywood and Boyle Heights, as well as 65 permanent housing units and 16 transitional residences. The North Hollywood shelter was funded through federal and city grants, as well as private donations from charitable foundations.

“We want to help people get from living in a car to financial self-sufficiency,” said Arnold Stalk, executive director of the corporation. “We want them to make this transition easily over a short period of time.”

Families will be referred to the new shelter through churches and temples. Those living in the shelter will only be allowed to stay about 90 days. Within that time, they will receive counseling on how to obtain permanent housing and employment. They must agree to meet with a social worker once a week.

“Something like this shelter will allow families to stabilize and calm themselves enough so that they can come to grips with other kinds of problems,” said Bob Vilmur, homeless projects coordinator for the Los Angeles Community Development Department. “I just wish we had more of them.”