Transitional Relationship

Of all the people at a dedication ceremony Thursday praising L.A. Family Housing Corp. for its work in getting homeless families off the streets and back on their feet, Mary Cox had perhaps the highest praise.

The single mother, 31, said she became homeless after losing her job caring for an elderly patient who died in October 1997.

After living in cramped apartments with a friend in Palmdale and her mother in Panorama City, Cox and her three children moved last month into an efficiency unit at the housing agency’s Sydney M. Irmas Transitional Living Center in North Hollywood.

“This is a place for me to lay my head while I’m trying to get on my feet,” Cox said. “I lost everything. I have to start all over again, but it’s going to be fine. We’re going to be fine.”

Cox’s family and 67 others live in the housing complex on Lankershim Boulevard, which advocates for the homeless say is the largest facility for homeless families in the Los Angeles metropolitan area.

The center is named for the late chairman of the board of L.A. Family Housing Corp. The lawyer and philanthropist was instrumental in expanding the agency from one that operated a small motel to one that oversees 18 properties to house the city’s homeless and poor.

Several federal, state, county and city officials were on hand at Thursday’s dedication ceremony, including U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), who lauded the center’s staff for its commitment to helping homeless families regain their independence.

“This center . . . recognizes the need to diagnose why an individual becomes homeless,” Feinstein told about 300 guests gathered under a tent next to the facility. “It provides different programs to help change a lifestyle before it becomes permanent and recalcitrant.”

Audrey M. Irmas, trustee of the Irmas Family Charitable Foundation, said she and her late husband were committed to improving the lives of homeless families, particularly the children.

“We are losing a generation of children who are living on the streets,” she said. “We have to clothe, feed and educate them.”

In 1992, about 600 to 700 homeless people were sleeping in facilities run by L.A. Family Housing Corp., Irmas said. Although the number has swelled to 1,400 this year, she said, at least “those are 1,400 people a night who are not sleeping in cars and who are not sleeping in doorways.”

For Jesus and Maria Garcia, the opening of the transitional living center means they will not be counted among the estimated 84,000 homeless people in the county sleeping every night on the streets, in shelters or in substandard housing.

Jesus Garcia said he became homeless when the company he worked for as a satellite installer went bankrupt and did not pay its employees.

Since moving into the shelter, he has found a new job as a maintenance worker and is saving money to move into an apartment.

Although Thursday marked the center’s official opening, families began moving into the $3.2-million facility in October, officials said. Many came from L.A. Family Housing Corp.’s Trudy and Norman Louis Valley Shelter, a few doors down on Lankershim.

At that shelter, homeless families were mixed in with single men and women, officials said. As a safety measure, the agency decided to separate families from the singles, whose backgrounds are often unknown.

The new transitional living center will house 30 families in the emergency shelter program for as long as 90 days. It also will house 25 families in a short-term transitional program for up to six months. The center will further provide long-term transitional housing/tenant apprenticeship--a program in which residents pay a portion of their rent and utilities--for up to two years.

The living units feature a private bathroom, a sofa bed, bunk beds with a trundle bed, a dinette set, a small refrigerator and a closet.

Additionally, the center has a full kitchen, dining room, community room, clinic, job resource center, child-care center and computer lab. Social services representatives will provide residents with mental health, drug and alcohol counseling as well as help in applying for welfare, housing, veterans, Social Security and health-care benefits.

“The center will be a fantastic opportunity for families . . . to reestablish their stability and return to the community,” said Nat Hutton, executive director of L.A. Family Housing Corp.

Mary Cox, the transitional housing tenant now in a job training program to become a licensed vocational nurse, agreed.

“My caseworker has really pushed me to get on my feet,” she said.

“Without this place,” Cox said, “I would be in my mother’s house with a lot of other people, in a shelter or on the streets.”