NORTH HOLLYWOOD : Homeless Site Deal Nearly Completed

Plans for a multimillion-dollar apartment complex to house homeless families may take a big step forward this week if the nonprofit L. A. Family Housing Corp. succeeds in purchasing a lot for the project in North Hollywood.

The group’s housing director, Vera Fleischman, said the agency expects to close escrow on a property on Vineland Avenue this week.

The organization plans to build a $2.5-million, 18-unit apartment complex on the site.

The building, which the group hopes to complete by 1995, will work through the Trudy and Norman Louis Valley Shelter to house homeless families.

“They can only stay at the shelter for 90 days and they have to move on,” Fleischman said. What were doing is providing low, affordable rent so they can have productive lives within their means.”

Eighteen low-income families will occupy the new building, paying between $380 and $490 per month for two- to four-bedroom apartments, Fleischman said.

The new, two- to three-story building will also have security gates, a play area, laundry facilities and a community room.

Fleischman said tenants will also have the benefit of being close to the medical and social services provided by the Valley shelter, situated about a mile away on Lankershim Boulevard. The Valley shelter also houses 80 families on an emergency basis.

About $1.2 million of the project’s cost is being funded by private investors, $900,000 by the city of Los Angeles’ Housing Department and $100,000 by the Federal Housing Department, Fleischman said.

The rest is funded by the L.A. Family Housing Corp., which operates about a dozen housing facilities for the needy throughout Los Angeles and the Valley.

The Vineland complex would be the third permanent housing complex in the Valley developed by the L.A. Housing Family Corp.

The others are also situated in North Hollywood: a three-unit project on Gentry Avenue and an 18-unit complex on Harmony Avenue.