8 Trailers to House Homeless Families at Pacoima Project

Homeless families will be housed in eight mobile homes at the San Fernando Gardens public housing project in Pacoima within three to four weeks, Los Angeles city officials said Thursday.

The temporary housing, intended to provide shelter for three to six months while the families seek a permanent place to live, was approved Thursday by the city Planning Commission, which also agreed to allow seven mobile homes at the Mar Vista Gardens project near Culver City.

The commission’s action, opposed by several Westside residents but none from the Valley, allows the city to keep the mobile homes at the projects for two years. Families that move on to permanent housing will be replaced by other homeless families, city officials said.

A Housing Authority spokesman said building permits to erect foundations for the mobile homes will be obtained next week, and sewer, water, electricity and gas will be connected once the trailers are moved onto the property in the next couple of weeks.

Final Action

Joseph Gelletich, director of development for the Housing Authority, said the Planning Commission action is final, meaning the agency does not need further approval from the City Council. The City Council approved a general citywide plan for the mobile homes last fall.

The two- and three-bedroom trailers are among 102 purchased by the city last summer from the Utah-based Intermountain Power Agency, where they had been used as housing for construction workers.

Ten of the trailers already have been placed at the Ramona Gardens housing project in East Los Angeles, where four homeless families now live. Others are planned for Normont Terrace in Harbor City and Avalon Gardens in South-Central Los Angeles. The city still has not found locations for about 20 of the trailers.

Deputy Mayor Grace Davis told the commissioners that the housing is not intended for the so-called “hard-core” homeless, but rather to give families who have run into some hard luck a chance to get back on their feet.

“The families to be housed are really no different than the families that are already there in the housing projects,” Davis said. “People in the housing project who did not have subsidies from the Housing Authority would probably be homeless, too.”

Davis said the homeless families housed in the trailers will be screened by social agencies selected by the city.

Talks With Agency

City officials are negotiating with Valley Shelter, an emergency homeless shelter in North Hollywood, to screen applicants for the Pacoima trailers and provide counseling and other services for the families that will live in them.

In Mar Vista, the city has not chosen a social-services agency, although People Assisting the Homeless, St. Joseph Center and Jewish Family Services have all expressed an interest, city officials said.

Housing Authority officials and aides to Councilman Ernani Bernardi, who represents Pacoima, and Councilwoman Ruth Galanter, who represents the Mar Vista Gardens area, said residents of the projects and nearby homeowners have been supportive of plans to place the trailers at the projects.

But, at the Planning Commission meeting on Thursday, about half a dozen people who live near Mar Vista Gardens complained that the trailers would attract crime, gang activity and drugs to an area they said is already burdened by serious problems.

‘Doesn’t Seem Fair’

They asked the commission to place the trailers somewhere else, although they offered no alternatives.

The city is “going to bring more people who are more depressed into this depressed area,” said Eleanor Timmons, who has lived three houses away from the project for 30 years.