CRA Votes $2 Million for Emergency Shelter

The Los Angeles Community Redevelopment Agency on Wednesday approved more than $2 million in financing to help house homeless families, elderly people, low- and moderate-income tenants and other people in need of emergency shelter.

At the same time, the CRA announced its intention of temporarily closing and renovating Gladys Park, a seedy downtown park that has served as a makeshift camp for homeless people but has also been a mecca for thieves and drug peddlers.

CRA officials said the park, at 6th and Gladys streets in the heart of the city’s Skid Row, will be closed starting Tuesday for nine to 11 months. When it reopens, they said, sleeping on the grounds will no longer be allowed. The officials said that representatives of local social service agencies will be notifying people who have been living in the park of the location of nearby shelters.

The single largest financial commitment approved by the CRA’s Board of Commissioners was a $1-million appropriation to help pay for a new shelter for homeless families that is being planned by Las Familias del Pueblo, a privately operated downtown social service agency. The new shelter, if approved by the City Council, would provide temporary housing for as many as 36 families. The shelter would be located on Keller Street between Macy and Ramirez streets just north of the Civic Center. The property, now vacant, is bounded by a Hollywood Freeway overpass and the Los Angeles River.

Acknowledging the bleakness and isolation of the location, CRA officials said it was the only potential site they had found where nearby residents or property owners had not objected to the shelter.

In addition, the CRA approved funds for several other projects, including:

- A $350,000 appropriation to allow the Skid Row Development Corp. to continue operating its temporary downtown shelter for six more months;

- A $171,000 loan to Victory Outreach, a nonprofit religious group, to help establish a 14-bed shelter at 1801 S. Toberman St. in the Pico Union area;

- Up to $800,000 in loans and allocations to help build an 18-unit low- and moderate-income apartment complex at 625 N. New Hampshire Ave. in Hollywood.