Armories a Haven From Cold, Rain for Homeless : Shelter: Orange County’s two National Guard buildings provide warm beds, hot meals and showers for 250 people a night.

The streets are rarely kind to the estimated 10,000 Orange County men, women and children who have no homes, but the situation is bleaker in winter when the nights are long, temperatures drop and the rains come.

Every night since Dec. 13, the county’s two National Guard armories have sheltered capacity crowds of homeless people, offering them hot showers, warm meals and dry cots. Officials said the armories, under a state program, get about 250 people off the street each night.

But hundreds of others don’t come in from the cold.

“If we had another 200-bed facility on top of the armories, we could fill that tomorrow with no problem,” said Jim Miller, director of Shelters for the Homeless. “The bottom line is money. We have more and more people in need, but not enough resources.”

During hard times, there is greater demand for social services but less money available from government and private charities.

So, while the county’s homeless population is believed to be growing, there are still only about 1,000 year-round shelter beds for the homeless, said Tim Shaw, executive director of the Orange County Homeless Issues Task Force.

The armory program temporarily provides an additional 250 beds by opening National Guard facilities in Santa Ana and Fullerton when temperatures drop to 40 degrees, or to 50 degrees when rain is forecast.

The armories have opened to Orange County’s disadvantaged population during bad weather months since 1987. More than 20,700 visitors were lodged during 98 nights last season at the two sites, and the county homeless issues coordinator, Maria Mendoza, said greater attendance is expected this year.

The use of armories to temporarily house the California’s homeless began six years ago, when then-Gov. George Deukmejian initiated the Emergency Shelter Program, with Orange County as a pilot county.

The county will spend up to $100,000 this year to support the program, but most of the funding will be recovered through federal grants. Private donations and federal money channeled through charity organizations make up the shelter program’s remaining budget. Total operating expenses last year were $248,900, county records show.

More than just a warm night’s respite, the shelters are a center for other types of help. Clothes gathered during a countywide drive are handed out, as is information about assistance programs.

Mendoza said donations of warm clothes, food and other resources are always needed. So are volunteers, who serve meals and visit with the shelter clients.

County officials estimate there are 10,000 to 12,000 homeless people in Orange County, half of them children. A new study by the Homeless Issues Task Force showed that the area’s homeless hail from 29 Orange County cities. In that survey, 27% of the respondents said they had spent the previous night on the street or in a parked vehicle.

Scott Mather, an official with the St. Vincent DePaul Society in Orange, said the number of homeless people is increasing, driven by those displaced by the bad economy.

“A lot of families, single parents with kids, and people that had jobs in aerospace or other industries have been working their way down, and now they’ve hit the streets,” said Mather, whose group has food and temporary living programs countywide. “They’re the nouveau poor. These are people that have not been here before.”

The National Guard Armory in Santa Ana is located at 612 E. Warner Ave. The Fullerton facility is at 400 S. Brookhurst St. For information about volunteering, call Shelters for the Homeless at (714) 897--3221.