Homeless Get Chance to Come In From Cold

Gusty winds Friday blew in some much-needed good fortune for the homeless, prompting authorities to open the San Fernando Valley’s only cold-weather emergency shelter for the second consecutive night.

Friday was only the fourth night since the winter shelter program went into effect nearly a month ago that up to 155 homeless men and women were permitted to bunk at the National Guard Armory in Van Nuys under a $2.4-million, federally funded program.

Through Monday, the shelter is opened only when there is a forecast of temperatures falling below 40 degrees or a 50% chance of rain.

Forecasters were predicting that temperatures Friday night would drop into the upper 30s in some parts of the Valley, with winds that had gusted up to 40 m.p.h. earlier in the day tapering off toward morning.

Beginning Tuesday, all 22 cold-weather shelters throughout Los Angeles County will open nightly through March 31, regardless of the weather.

That will be welcome news to some of the 35,500 to 83,900 thinly clad homeless men and women who risk freezing to death by sleeping outdoors in chilly weather, said Gene Boutilier, executive director of the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority, the joint county and city agency that manages the program. There are about 8,500 shelter beds open year-round throughout the county and 2,000 extra in the winter.

Only 36 homeless people took refuge at the armory in the three nights prior to Friday that the shelter was open, but that number is expected to rise sharply as the weather grows wetter and colder and word gets around, said Nat Hutton, executive director of the Los Angeles Family Housing Corp., which operates the shelter.

In the five years since the winter shelter program began, homeless advocates have succeeded in shortening the weather-activated portion and expanding the number of days the shelters are guaranteed to stay open. The 76-day period that begins Tuesday is six days longer than last year and 46 days longer than four seasons ago.

But some advocates want to eliminate the weather-activated portion of the program altogether, saying that the method used to determine whether to open the shelters is faulty. The final decision is made at 10 a.m. regardless of any changes in the weather later in the day.

“It’s incredibly frustrating that they didn’t open up the shelters when it’s been so cold,” said Bob Erlenbusch, executive director of the Los Angeles Coalition to End Homelessness.

Boutilier said that shelter workers need time to prepare the evening meal and arrange transportation for the homeless. Opening the shelters more often would be ideal but is impossible because of the agency’s limited funds, he said.