National Guard Armories Offer Shelter for the Homeless : Emergency: Santa Ana, Fullerton facilities will be open nearly every night for next three months. Each can accommodate up to 135 people during winter. O.C. homeless are estimated at up to 15,000.

With nighttime temperatures dipping into the 40s, National Guard armories in Santa Ana and Fullerton opened their doors to some of Orange County’s homeless Monday night, housing as many as 270 men, women and children under the annual cold weather emergency shelter program.

With cots, warm blankets, free flu shots and tuberculosis and HIV testing kits, organizers are trying to improve conditions for some of the county’s estimated 12,000 to 15,000 homeless as the winter weather grows colder.

“I see the armory as a health and safety issue,” said Maria Mendoza, the county’s homeless issues coordinator. “We help get people off the streets when they could die out in the cold.”

Almost every night for the next three months, the two military training facilities, each of which is about the size of a high school gymnasium, will be transformed into safe havens where hot meals prepared by Theo Lacy Branch Jail inmates and staff will be offered. The shelters, which can hold as many as 135 people each, are expected to be full every night.

The use of armories to temporarily house California’s homeless during bad weather months began seven years ago, when then-Gov. George Deukmejian initiated the Emergency Shelter Program, which included Orange County as part of a pilot project.

Under previous regulations, armories opened when temperatures dropped to 40 degrees, or to 50 degrees when it was raining or precipitation was forecast.

Temperatures this week are expected to dip into the 60s during the day and 40s at night. Slightly warmer temperatures are expected by the weekend.

Officials said both armories will close on Friday if temperatures increase by then. Unless there is another cold snap, they will remain closed until Dec. 15, when the law mandates that they open and remain open through March 15.

The armories close to the homeless when the National Guard must use the facilities.

Advocates for the homeless say they appreciate the program, but they caution that the temporary shelters should not be seen as a remedy for the county’s homelessness problem.

“We all sleep a little better in the winter months when we know the armories are there,” said Tim Shaw, executive director of the Orange County Homeless Issues Task Force, a county-funded organization. “The armory is a cold weather shelter. It’s like window-dressing the solution to homelessness. It’s not the best use of funds. It’s . . . a place of last resort. We need that, especially in cold weather.”

Buses sponsored by the emergency program will pick up the homeless at central points such as the Santa Ana Civic Center and Pearson Park in Fullerton, reducing the crowds of people seeking aid at local missions.

“The armories come in very handy,” said Jeff Nickels, assistant program manager at the Rescue Mission in Santa Ana. “There are nights when there are up to 60 people we can’t accommodate. It’s small Band-Aid work, but we appreciate it.”

By 7 a.m., the armories return to military use. Shelter residents are bused back to pickup points.

Residents of neighborhoods where the armories are located have complained in the past that shelters often draw homeless people into their communities. But Mendoza argued that the program’s bus system prevents crowds of people from congregating around the armories.

In a 1993 survey conducted by the Homeless Issues Task Force, analysts found that the needy come from all parts of Orange County, including affluent cities such as Newport Beach, Irvine and Mission Viejo.

“Orange County people tend to think homeless people are coming from somewhere else and that they’re not from here,” Shaw said. “But the reality is that they are. Homelessness is a local problem.”

Because of the early blast of cold weather, and what homeless advocates say is an increased homeless population this winter, organizers predict greater attendance at the armories this year.

“My feeling is we are going to have a worse winter this year. Once it turns cold and rainy, we go over capacity,” said Jim Miller, director of Shelter for the Homeless, the nonprofit agency that contracts with the county to run the shelter program.

Organizers are trying to bolster the effectiveness of this year’s $260,000 program by linking up shelter residents with long-term transitional housing. Questionnaires will be distributed to assess the needs of the homeless. The data will be sent to federal and state agencies in an effort to improve social services.

Shelter for the Homeless also will screen people entering the armory for referral to a newly created program, in which 12 churches will house single men and women for 45 to 60 days of counseling and job training.

If they complete that program, they become eligible for Shelter for the Homeless’ transitional housing program, where they can live for as long as a year in homes owned by the agency.

“People on the streets are survivors,” Mendoza said. “It’s not as though they don’t want to help themselves. But they’ve made poor decisions all their lives. We’ve sort of crippled them by assisting them with only emergency care. Unless we are there as a support, they are not going to be successful.”

The National Armory in Santa Ana is at 612 E. Warner Ave. The Fullerton facility is at 400 S. Brookhurst St. For information, call Shelter for the Homeless at (714) 879-3221.