Shelter Seeks Money to Stay Open

Operators of a South Bay shelter for battered women plan to launch a fund-raising drive in an effort to keep the home open after losing one-fourth of their funds in a Los Angeles County budget cut.

The county Board of Supervisors voted earlier this month to eliminate $60,000 in annual contributions to the 1736 Family Crisis Center shelter in the South Bay and a similar shelter in Glendale.

The Glendale shelter closed three days after the county action. But the 1736 Family Crisis Center’s board of directors voted last week to try to keep the 12-bed South Bay shelter open by applying for an emergency loan and searching for donations.

“If we closed down, it would leave a lot of people in very, very serious danger,” said Carol Adelkoff, director of the nonprofit agency that operates the 1736 shelter. “At present, this is the only extended-care facility for battered women and their children in Los Angeles County.”

The 1736 and Glendale shelters have been used to house women and their children for up to six months after they left “emergency” shelters, where clients can stay a maximum of 45 days. Known as transitional shelters, the two homes also have provided programs to help women find jobs, locate housing and budget their limited funds.

Adelkoff said that in the South Bay, closure of the 1736 shelter would force many women to return to abusive partners or to live on the streets.

The county funding cut will leave the shelter about $5,000 short when payroll and other expenses are due at the end of July, she said. The shelter might be forced to close immediately if that money is not made up, she said.

The shelter’s current annual budget of about $240,000 supports a staff of seven and pays the facility’s operating expenses.

The shelter will apply for a no-interest loan from the Emergency Loan and Assistance Fund of Los Angeles, a foundation that supports nonprofit organizations. But, even if it gets the loan, the shelter will need other donations, Adelkoff said.

“We are going to fight with everything we’ve got to keep this place going,” she said.

The Board of Supervisors voted 3 to 2 to eliminate funding for the two shelters in an effort to maintain maximum funding for the county’s 16 emergency shelters. Supervisors Ed Edelman, Kenneth Hahn and Pete Schabarum voted for the cut. Opposing it were supervisors Deane Dana and Mike Antonovich, in whose districts the two transitional shelters are located.

Even with the elimination of funding for the two homes, the remaining 16 will still get less this year because the shelter account was overdrawn by $225,000. Each emergency shelter will receive $71,000 in 1990-91, compared with last year’s $80,000.