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It’s the Season for Giving, so Armories Fit Bill as Homes

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In a commercial section in the 400 block of South Brookhurst Street in Fullerton stands a bleak-looking rectangular building surrounded by a heavy chain-link fence, with jeeps and other military vehicles dotting its parking lot.

It’s a National Guard Armory, not the kind of place you’d want to call home, unless you were desperate.

But come Dec. 15, it will be a welcome sight to some 150 people who

are homeless and eager to be out of the cold. The other armory, in the 600 block of East Warner Avenue in Santa Ana, will house a similar number of beds per night.

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“Thank God,” said Kathi Winter, director of Global Outreach, a private group that works on behalf of homeless causes in Orange County. “We need to have them open right now. I had a man this week who was sick and needed a warm bed and I had nowhere to send him.”

The problem may get worse. Gov. Pete Wilson has announced this is the last winter the armories will be open to the homeless. National Guard officials statewide haven’t been all that happy about sharing their facilities, which they say are not properly set up for mass housing. The armories were first opened to the homeless in the 1980s, as a stopgap measure until more permanent facilities could be found. The county bankruptcy in 1994 pretty much ended the search for a permanent place.

“Without the armories, we could well have chaos,” said Judy Kampmann, director of the Westminster-based Shelter for the Homeless.

Her nonprofit group has signed an agreement with the county supervisors to run homeless operations at the two armories, which will remain open for three months. In past years, they have opened earlier than Dec. 15, Kampmann said, “But that’s when there was more money available.”

Even with $150,000 in federal money to help, the two temporary shelters will operate on shoestring budgets. And Kampmann still has two critical needs: volunteers and donations.

If you want to volunteer, you can call Shelter for the Homeless at (714) 897-3221. Donations can be sent to the armories after Dec. 15. Kampmann needs clothing, snack foods and socks. Lots of new, dry socks.

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“The worst thing when it rains is wet socks,” she said. “We do our best to give people dry socks when they get there.”

Buses make the rounds of places where the homeless tend to gather, and bring them to the armories, which open at 5:30 p.m. Each armory has 120 beds, but Kampmann said that on busy nights she’ll do some creative rearranging to make room for 150. The arrangement is only for weekdays. The Salvation Army will operate temporary weekend shelters during the same period.

At the armories, a hot meal is provided for everyone about 6:30 p.m.

People are housed cot by cot in close quarters. Each armory is divided into sections for men, women and families. In the mornings, there’s a continental breakfast before the buildings are cleared to prepare for the next day’s rush.

By the way, there is a wake-up call, for those who go to work. Contrary to what the public sometimes thinks, Kampmann said, many of the homeless who will use the armories do have jobs.

“Some of these people are just a couple of paychecks from getting it together,” she said.

I suggested that operating these shelters seemed a thankless task. Not at all, she said:

“These people are so appreciative. When you’re wet and cold, all you want is a warm bed.”

One ray of hope: Gov. Wilson won’t be giving the orders next year. Homeless-aid officials say there’s a chance that Gov.-elect Gray Davis will be more open-minded about the need for them.

“But if not,” said Kampmann, “we’ll just have to pray that someone here with a huge building will say, ‘Come on over and use our place.’ ”

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Jerry Hicks’ column appears Monday, Thursday and Saturday. Readers may reach Hicks by calling The Times Orange County Edition at (714) 966-7823 or by fax to (714) 966-7711, or e-mail to jerry.hicks@latimes.com

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