EARTHQUAKE: THE ROAD TO RECOVERY : On the Street Again : For Some, Closing of Red Cross Quake Shelter Means Return to Homelessness

Beefy security guards with gruff voices and crossed arms blocked the entrance to the Red Cross emergency shelter in Santa Monica on Thursday morning. Cots and cribs were being loaded onto a truck.

It was the end of the road for the emergency shelter, opened the day of the Jan. 17 earthquake and dismantled at noon Thursday in accordance with Red Cross policy and against the wishes of some of its inhabitants. Some nights it housed as many as 300 people.

Outside the Santa Monica College gymnasium that has been their home for three weeks, people who were homeless before the earthquake complained about pounding the pavement again.

For some of them, it had been hard enough to get in the shelter because they did not have a prior address.

Among those left outside were Silvia Verduzco, who was on crutches from a knee injury, Bobbe Paris, with baby Max in tow, and George Baharakis, whose panic attacks keep him from re-entering his third-floor apartment.

“I have no place to go,” Verduzco said.

Others who had homes before the earthquake and stayed at the shelter Wednesday night were given temporary hotel and meal vouchers. But under Red Cross policy, those who were already homeless before the quake do not qualify.

Red Cross officials explain that they are a disaster relief agency, with neither the expertise nor the mission to solve the nation’s homeless problems.

“We can only return people to their pre-disaster status,” Red Cross worker Peggy Hinz said.

The Red Cross officials provided buses to transport those without a place to stay to traditional homeless shelters and said they would continue to operate a service center in Santa Monica to assist people.

Thirty Red Cross emergency shelters have closed, leaving about 17 operating, although many of them are winding down their disaster operations.

Red Cross officials said 20,084 cases have been opened since the quake, all of which will be followed up.

“We don’t pack up and go,” said Donna Sharits, a Red Cross employee from Virginia. “We’re still working on cases from Hurricane Andrew.”

But some in the homeless community say they are being discriminated against.

“Homeless people were victims of the earthquake too,” said Len Doucette. For a time, the homeless at the shelter had hot meals, first aid, counseling and child care. But few who lingered outside at noon knew where they would be sleeping Thursday night.

“I’ll figure something out,” said Bob Sharpe, 52. “I’m a big boy.”