COUNTYWIDE : Armories to Provide Shelter for Homeless

On many cold nights this winter, the county’s homeless will be able to take shelter in National Guard armories in Fullerton and Santa Ana.

A program run by Shelter for the Homeless will house up to 250 people each night. Many are brought to the shelters in buses that pick them up at public parks.

An armory at 400 S. Brookhurst Road in Fullerton and another at 612 E. Warner Ave. in Santa Ana will be used, each housing about 125 men, women and children for the night.

The special shelter program will probably begin Dec. 3 and run through March 31.

Before Dec. 15, the shelters will open only when temperatures fall below 40 degrees, or below 50 when combined with a 50% chance of rain, according to Jim Miller, shelter director.

After Dec. 15, the shelters will be open almost every night. Since the armories are the sites of National Guard training, there are 25 days over the winter when the homeless will not be able to stay there.

Miller said he is searching for churches with large rooms that could take at least 80 cots. Shelter program staff members will bring cots, towels, dry clothes and food to the shelters, or to any churches, he said.

Jonathan Boswell, a spokesman for Shelter for the Homeless, said that last year the group picked up homeless people at the Civic Center and Orange County Rescue Mission in Santa Ana, W.O. Hart Park in Orange, Pioneer Park in Garden Grove and La Palma and Pearson parks in Anaheim.

Miller said the sites may change this year, depending on where homeless people congregate.

On nights when the armories are closed, the group will still bus homeless people to shelters at churches or other places, Boswell said. He said a list of the closure dates will be posted at each armory.

And Boswell said that if too many people show up at an armory, up to 200 people will be given dinner, and those who cannot spend the night will be referred to other shelters.

The armories will open at 5 p.m. each day, Boswell said, and checkout time is 7 a.m.