Armories Sought to Shelter Homeless in Cold Weather : Social services: The state has not yet decided whether to OK nightly use of National Guard buildings.

With temperatures dropping and the start of the city’s cold weather shelter program approaching, Los Angeles officials say they have not yet found shelters to house the homeless of the San Fernando Valley and the Westside.

Administrators of the cold weather program said Monday that they are awaiting a response from Gov. Pete Wilson to their request to use state National Guard armories as shelters for the homeless from November to March.

Thus far, the state has made a partial commitment: The armories will be available on an as-needed basis from Friday to Dec. 15 and from Feb. 15 to the end of March, according to city officials.

Armory shelters will be activated during those periods whenever temperatures drop below 40 degrees, or below 50 degrees when there is more than a 50% chance of rain.

But Wilson has been asked to expand the state’s role by authorizing use of the armories during the cold winter weeks from mid-December to mid-February, when the program calls for shelters to be open every night. Last year, the armories were not available for full-time operation.

Loren Kaye, Wilson’s cabinet secretary, said that his office is discussing the matter with the National Guard and that the governor will decide soon on the Los Angeles request and similar requests from cities around the state.

“There will be some kind of program this year,” Kaye said. “The question is what the program will be and what the timing is of implementing it.”

If the Van Nuys Armory cannot be used continuously, social service workers will have to make do with last year’s more expensive and less desirable site in a modified aircraft hangar at Van Nuys Airport, said Wendy Greuel of Mayor Tom Bradley’s office.

She said the Board of Airport Commissioners is expected to approve today that backup site, which requires installation of portable toilets, showers and food-serving facilities.

Officials have not yet found a suitable Westside shelter site.

Similar problems last year forced the program to move several times among makeshift sites at Venice High School and a Stoner Park building in West Los Angeles.

“We would hope we would find something more suitable,” said Gloria Clark, an administrator in the city’s Community Redevelopment Department, who said National Guard preparations for the Persian Gulf War were an obstacle to using the armories last year. “We are hoping there will be greater availability this year.”

The California Council for Veterans Affairs, the agency slated to operate the Westside program, proposed a site that was recently rejected by the city because it is in Culver City rather than Los Angeles, Greuel said.

About 150 people a night are expected at each Valley and Westside shelter.

“This is not the easiest program for providers to run,” Greuel said. “These are some of the real desperate homeless, people with nowhere else to go, the mentally ill.”

On Monday, the City Council’s Committee on Redevelopment and Housing approved the $1.14-million cold weather program, which will shelter a total of about 1,300 people at 12 shelters.

The contracts of the Council for Veterans Affairs and L. A. Family Housing Corp., the Valley shelter operator, were approved on condition that sites are found.