Welfare Reform Will Boost Ranks of Homeless, Official Says
Kay Ostberg, the newly appointed executive director of the Ocean Park Community Center, believes welfare reform will greatly increase the number of homeless individuals, now estimated at 5,000, in the city. “Our greatest challenge will be simply to meet that need,” she said.
Ostberg also wants to help runaway adolescents. No city program targets their needs, she said.
Ostberg previously was deputy executive director of the Los Angeles Gay and Lesbian Center. In four years there, she helped that agency’s annual budget grow from $8 million to $20 million while the number of clients tripled to 14,000 a month.
“We’ll be asking private donors to help out here,” she said. The center has 80 beds for men and women, and an annual budget of $3 million.
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