NORTH HOLLYWOOD : Apartment Complex Built to House Homeless Opens

Without a job or even a place to live, Robert and Carolyn Burns spent some nights this year huddled in their 1972 Buick with their 5-year-old son and 3-year-old daughter.

On Tuesday, though, the Burns family put that life behind them and prepared to settle into a new two-bedroom, two-bathroom apartment in North Hollywood.

They were the first of 17 families expected to move in the next month into the $2.2-million Harmony Place, low-income apartment complex. The housing was developed by L.A. Family Housing Corp., a nonprofit agency that provides emergency shelter and permanent housing to homeless people throughout the city. Federal rent subsidies will help homeless people get back on their feet. The Burns family, for example, will pay only $345 a month in rent.

The Community Redevelopment Agency loaned the family housing corporation $1.5 million to develop the two-story complex. Another $700,000 was loaned by California Community Reinvestment Corp., a nonprofit consortium of 58 banks.