Armory shelter to open doors

Alex Coolman

THORNYCROFT -- They’ve put new lights in at the National Guard Armory

and they’ve got the old stove working again -- all in preparation for the

opening this weekend of the city’s cold weather homeless shelter.

The Colorado Street facility opens its doors to the homeless Saturday

evening, bringing a close to a months-long debate over where the city

should house its shelter.

In July, it looked like complaints from library patrons and others

would prevent the armory, which has served as the city’s shelter since

1995, from being used again.

The city nearly decided to go with another site on Chevy Chase Drive,

and spent more than $70,000 preparing to create a steel-framed temporary

building there.

But in the end, the high cost of that alternative and the

impossibility of using the site for more than one year meant that the

Chevy Chase Drive plans were axed.

For this year, at any rate, the shelter will remain in its home on

Colorado.

Several residents using the library on Thursday said they were

satisfied with the resolution to the shelter problem.

Judith Vaugine, who was walking her dog near the library lawn, said

she would be pleased to have the armory open again.

“Certainly, in the winter months you hate to see people out shivering

away.”

Having homeless people in the area, she said, is something she finds

“a little unsettling. But there are homeless people everywhere now.”

14-year-old Joanne Gutierrez, who was eating lunch on the library

steps, seemed to share this sense of sympathy and tension.

“I think it’s great” she said. “It’s cool because it helps people

out.”

Her feelings weren’t quite the same about homeless people coming to

the library. “I feel uncomfortable” when they come, she said.

At the armory building, where he was dealing with a few final

preparations for the opening, Sgt. Michael Bird of the California Army

National Guard was being very diplomatic.

Did he think the armory was a smart location for the shelter? Did he

think any alternative might be better? The official response, Bird said,

was very simple.

“We support what the Glendale City Council says. We’ll support the

community as best we can.”

The National Guard Armory is at 220 E. Colorado St.