Homeless Center

Re "Homeless Camp Weighed in Industrial Area," Oct. 14: Both the public and other Times' reporters have been misinformed about a planned downtown drop-in center that is part of a $20-million homeless initiative grant from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. The article noted that "the Riordan Administration has launched a plan to shuttle homeless people to an urban campground on a fenced lot in the city's core industrial area . . . where up to 800 people could take showers and sleep on a lawn."

Supervisors approved $875,000 Tuesday to open three drop-in centers for mentally ill homeless young men in Irwindale, Santa Monica and Hollywood. The centers, which will be operated by Pacific Clinics, the Los Angeles Gay and Lesbian Center, and Step-up on Second Street, will provide showers, meals, clothing and mental health services for 16- to 25-year-olds who are living in the streets or have an unstable home life.

KCLU will sponsor a jazz benefit concert and barbecue on Broome Ranch from 2 to 6 p.m. Saturday. The event is the 10th annual fund-raiser for the Ventura County Commission on Human Concerns. Proceeds will benefit the One Stop Drop-In Center, designed to prevent the recurrence of homelessness and promote self-sufficiency. KCLU, a community service of Cal Lutheran University, is a National Public Radio station serving listeners in Ventura County and Santa Barbara.

In nearly 24 years in Venice, Ty Allison has been threatened with a knife and assaulted by vagrants. Almost daily, he calls police to report that homeless people are using crack and methadone in his driveway. Ana Petrova cleans up human feces every morning in the alley behind Peter's Marina Motors, the business she and her husband have operated on Lincoln Boulevard for 40 years.

A Ventura County homeless center may be forced to close unless local activists can demonstrate the need for the service and suggest alternate funding sources at a public meeting on Monday afternoon, officials said. FOCUS, a day center for homeless people at 255 S. Laurel St. in Ventura, run by Ventura County's Commission on Human Concerns, faces a reduction in state money, Executive Director Lee Riggan said. The town meeting will be held from noon to 2:30 p.m. at Ventura City Hall, 501 Poli St.

A proposal for a larger drop-in center to serve the homeless mentally ill in Long Beach got a $21,800 boost this week. Audrey Langslet, former chairman of the Mayor's Task Force on the Homeless, handed the Mental Health Assn. in Los Angeles County a check for $8,900--proceeds from the opening night of a three-day promotion last fall for area restaurants. The Junior Chamber of Commerce contributed $2,000. The money, matched dollar for dollar by the Mental Health Assn.

City officials on Thursday will celebrate the opening of the Glendale Service Center, a new facility designed to aid the homeless and needy. The service center offers homeless people, and those in danger of becoming homeless, a wide range of services including case management, employment services, health screening, psychological services and counseling, officials said.

The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors approved a $75,000 block grant last week for the West Hollywood Homeless Organization, a multi-service center for the homeless. The center, located at 1033 N. La Brea Ave., provides counseling programs, educational classes, case management services, job development, housing referrals, street outreach and free clothing. The 70-bed facility is open 24 hours a day and includes a fully staffed health clinic, and access to shower and laundry amenities.

A processing center for homeless people has been opened in Venice. Located at the Venice Pavilion, the center is staffed by city and county employees and is open to anyone interested in finding employment or applying for general relief. Rick Ruiz, an aide to Los Angeles City Councilwoman Ruth Galanter, said the center will remain open for at least two weeks. After that period, homeless people still camped on Venice Beach will be ordered to leave, he said.

Step Up On 2nd, a service center in Santa Monica for the homeless and the mentally ill, has been awarded a $263,412 grant from the U.S. Department of Labor. The grant will be used for the group's Project Change, which offers job training and other educational and social services for homeless adults with psychiatric problems. Project officials estimate that the grant will enable them to provide services to 700 homeless people, and to place 60 in jobs.

In the foothills of the San Fernando Valley sits a quiet retreat studded with low-slung buildings and lushly landscaped walkways. Birds chirp from swaying branches of sycamores and oaks and a multilevel koi pond near the entrance gurgles softly. It once was home to senior citizens who could live out their final years in nature's embrace. Now a homeless agency in downtown Los Angeles wants to convert the wooded, 71-acre property into transitional housing for 275 homeless women and children.

WHEN the new Midnight Mission homeless center opened a year ago in the heart of skid row, a flurry of media coverage suggested that the building was, well, just too attractive. The Christian Science Monitor reported that the $17-million center, designed by the local firm Gin Wong Associates, looked like "a new museum or corporate headquarters." National Public Radio called it "the rock star of the local shelters" and sent a reporter to spend the night -- to check the thread count, as it were.

Downtown West Covina is a classic picture of a certain sort of Southern California revitalization. In a district that was once a shabby collection of commercial businesses, there are new stuccoed buildings with splashy signs, proclaiming a host of chain stores and restaurants, with names like Applebee's, Quiznos, Best Buy and T-Mobile. But now, Los Angeles County is considering adding something that West Covina officials say doesn't fit the urban revitalization plan.

Los Angeles County officials are trying to determine whether any of 14 small drop-in centers for homeless people can be converted to the five regional facilities being established as the county attempts to move services for transients out of downtown. The facilities are in communities across Los Angeles County, including Pasadena, Long Beach, North Hollywood, El Monte, Santa Monica, Venice, West Covina and Glendale.

The move Saturday of Ventura County's new homeless center to the outskirts of Camarillo only spanned four miles. But for families and individuals who call the shelter home, it covered a lot more ground than that. Aided by dozens of volunteers, nearly 50 men, women and children relocated from cramped quarters at Camarillo Airport to a fully renovated, two-story building near Cal State Channel Islands.

KCLU will sponsor a jazz benefit concert and barbecue on Broome Ranch from 2 to 6 p.m. Saturday. The event is the 10th annual fund-raiser for the Ventura County Commission on Human Concerns. Proceeds will benefit the One Stop Drop-In Center, designed to prevent the recurrence of homelessness and promote self-sufficiency. KCLU, a community service of Cal Lutheran University, is a National Public Radio station serving listeners in Ventura County and Santa Barbara.

Construction of a shower, bathroom and laundry room for the homeless has been completed at the Burbank Temporary Aid Center and could open Monday, the head of the center said. "Most people take showers for granted so they don't realize how good a shower can make us feel about life," said Cherie Combs, executive director of the center, which gives food and other help to the poor in Burbank.

Re "A Milestone at Haven for Homeless Women," Oct. 31: Perhaps it was appropriate that on the 20th anniversary of the Downtown Women's Center your article paid tribute to the vision and perseverance of founder Jill Halverson and to long-term resident Rose. Today, however, the center is more than a safe place for mentally ill women living on the street and 47 elderly, mentally ill residents. It is a facility which, thanks to the vision and perseverance of Caroline McColl, the present director, deals effectively and compassionately with a very different and ever-growing number of younger homeless women--victims of domestic violence, drug abuse and drastic changes in the welfare system.

Shelter for the Homeless has a new executive director, Judy Kampmann, a seven-year employee who was promoted to the top spot earlier this month. Kampmann has been with the nonprofit shelter since 1991, starting as a part-time employee and working her way up to director of operations. Over the years, she has managed the emergency housing of 1,344 homeless people and has seen 294 move on to self-sufficiency.