City Opening Warehouse to Homeless for Pope’s Visit

A city-owned downtown warehouse will be opened to hundreds of Skid Row homeless during the September visit of Pope John Paul II, officials said Friday, easing concerns that the men would be forced onto the streets by security restrictions on the Union Rescue Mission.

Because the Pope is staying overnight Sept. 15 and 16 at St. Vibiana’s Cathedral next door to the Main Street mission, security officials ordered that transients be barred from eating and sleeping at the building during the visit.

But city officials and mission operators said Friday that arrangements have been made to allow the 471 men displaced by the restrictions to stay at the warehouse at 527 Crocker St.

Needs Council’s Approval

The Los Angeles City Council, which must approve the use of a city facility, will formally consider the matter at its Tuesday meeting. Already, however, there are questions whether the one-story, red-brick warehouse will be able to accommodate all of the mission’s functions.

George Caywood, executive director of the Union Rescue Mission, said Friday that he is confident he will be able to offer eating and sleeping arrangements to the homeless at the temporary facility. An aide is scheduled to tour the warehouse early next week to assess its possible uses, he said.

Caywood said he plans to move beds and chairs directly from the mission to the warehouse, then back again once the Pope departs.

“It looks like we can do it,” he said.

But Deputy Mayor Grace Davis said she believes the warehouse is suited only for use at mealtime.

“They’re going to clean that out and use it to feed the people,” she said. “It’s not really going to be a shelter. It will have some chairs, but there won’t be any beds.”

Los Angeles Police Capt. Rick Batson, commander of the LAPD’s Central Division, said that if the council approves the warehouse’s use, “they’re not going to be moving any beds over there.”

Batson said the city warehouse will be used only for meals and as an assembly area.

471 Sheltered Nightly

The 96-year-old Union Rescue Mission, the largest such facility in Skid Row, shelters 471 men nightly, all but 86 on chairs in the chapel. It also houses another 185 men in alcohol and other rehabilitation programs and 15 employees. The U.S. Secret Service and the LAPD will allow the 200 non-transients to remain in the mission during the Pope’s visit.

In addition to nightly housing, the mission also serves about 2,000 meals daily. Under current plans, about 700 meals will be served at the mission--for the live-in group--and the remainder will be cooked there and transported to the Crocker Street warehouse several blocks away, Caywood said.

One section of the warehouse is already being used as a 90-bed shelter for the homeless. The remainder is a windowless area used by the city for surplus furniture and other items. Deputy Mayor Davis said that once council approval is given, it will take city workers only a few days to clean the building out.