Mental Health Center to Get Grant Funds

Hillview Mental Health Center will receive slightly more than $700,000 to bolster two programs that provide services and housing for physically or mentally ill homeless individuals, officials said.

The Hillview programs will be funded through two grants worth more than $8 million awarded in December to the Housing Authority of the city of Los Angeles by the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development.

“The nonprofits provide counseling and access services to deal with the medical, psychological, jobs readiness and income issues, while HACLA subsidizes rents and assures that rental properties are well maintained,” HACLA spokesman Steve Renahan said.

Most of the money promised to Hillview--$551,000--will go toward a new three-year program offering temporary shelter and a broad variety of social services to homeless individuals between the ages of 18 and 21, Hillview Director Carl McCraven said.

The remaining $150,000 will pay for subsidized housing for homeless and low-income mentally disabled people, he said.

“We are quite pleased with this. We think it will round out our programs,” McCraven said, adding that a gap now exists between outreach services and housing placement.

“We have been getting people in off the streets, but then we didn’t have anything to do with them,” he said.

The new program, which will be known as San Fernando Valley Coordinated Homeless Services, is expected to begin in July. It will be administered in cooperation with the San Fernando Valley Community Mental Health Center.

In addition to offering temporary shelter, counseling and referrals to government housing and assistance programs, it will provide toilets, showers, laundry and other amenities to give mentally and physically disabled homeless individuals a comfortable place to spend time, McCraven said.