HAVEN FOR HOMELESS CENTER OFFERS DAYTIME SHELTER.

Byline: Eric Leach Staff Writer

SIMI VALLEY - After sleeping outside in last week's icy winds and bone-chilling temperatures, Samantha Rhodes found a hot breakfast, warm shower and clean, dry clothes at the Samaritan Center for the homeless.

The 30-year-old Rhodes, who looks like a typical Simi Valley suburbanite but said she's been homeless since age 13, had struggled as temperatures plunged into the 30s during the four-day cold snap.

``I put on almost everything I have and was still shivering,'' she said. ``My feet were cold, my toes, my nose, my hands.''

But when the sun came up, Rhodes and about 40 others found refuge at the Samaritan Center, reveling in its clean smells of soap and cooking food.

``This place is great. It's like family,'' Rhodes said. ``Here you get a hot meal and a hot shower. I get food for the whole day.''

The Samaritan Center, 280 Royal Ave., has provided services for the homeless for the past decade. In celebration of its 10-year anniversary, the center will hold an open house from 4 p.m. to 7 p.m. Wednesday, with the public invited to see how the Samaritan Center works and meet the new executive director, Virginia Nelson.

The center helps homeless people suffering from chronic disabilities; those with personal crises such as domestic violence, rape or social dysfunction; and people who have recently become unemployed.

It provides phone service, a mailing address and a message center, and it operates in conjunction with the Public Action to Deliver Shelter program, which provides overnight shelter at various churches in Simi Valley from November 1 to March 31.

The center can also help with bus passes, bicycles and referral to a number of programs, including job training and services for alcohol and drug abuse. The center refers people in need of health care to the Simi Valley Free Clinic once a week on Tuesday from 9 a.m to 12 p.m.

The main gathering spot at the Samaritan Center is the laundry room, Nelson said. ``People can shower, sit, eat and get warmed up. We have to get them warmed up before we send them out again.''

One homeless woman, who gave her age as 57 but refused to give her name, said she sleeps in local shelters at night but stops in at the Samaritan Center each morning to get out of the cold.

``If it's cold and rainy, you have to sit in the park all day long until it's time to go to (the shelter) at 8 o'clock at night. I was so cold last night (before the shelter opened) it was unreal,'' the homeless woman said.

The center is open from 8 a.m. to 11 a.m. Monday through Saturday.

Nelson said there are many reasons homeless people come there, and they need a wide range of assistance.

``Mental health is a main issue,'' she said, adding that she is working with the Community Counseling and Resource Institute at California State University, Northridge, to provide counseling at the center.

``The proposal is to have counseling services for many clients who exhibit a range of psychological symptoms from mild to persistent and chronic mental illness,'' Nelson wrote in an appeal she is using to gain financial support from businesses in the community.

``We really need help with this mental health issue, because I feel that this is a reason a lot of people are chronically homeless. Without help, a lot of them are not going to get off the streets.''

John Purvis, director of the Public Action to Deliver Shelter program since 1995, said his experience has also shown him that people are homeless for a variety of complex reasons.

``Not everybody is cut out to live in a house behind a white picket fence,'' he said. ``Homelessness to some people is a way of life.''

``Some were living paycheck to paycheck, and the paychecks stopped,'' he said. ``They need the PADS program to get things sorted out, get another job and get moving again.''

In the mid-1990s, about 30 people a night used the local shelter program during peak winter months.

``Now it's in the high teens. Sunday, Nov. 28, we had 17, and Monday night we had 18. The cold isn't what brings them in as much as the rain.''

The PADS shelters are open at different locations each night, including the Knights of Columbus Hall on Patricia Avenue on Sundays; the Seventh Day Adventist Church at 1636 Sinaloa Road on Mondays; Trinity Lutheran Church at 2949 Alamo St. on Tuesdays; Simi Valley Presbyterian Church at 4832 Cochran St. on Wednesdays; Simi Valley Community Church at 2000 Royal Ave. on Thursdays; Our Savior Lutheran Church at 4191 Cochran St. on Fridays; and United Methodist Church at 2394 Erringer Road on Saturdays.

Eric Leach, [phone]

eric.leach(at)dailynews.com

CAPTION(S):

3 photos

Photo:

(1 -- color) Ed Silver eats a morning meal at the Samaritan Center, where many people go to get warm during the day.

(2 -- 3) At left, toiletries are put out for people in need; above, William Hamilton shares a laugh with a friend at the center.

Andy Holzman/Staff Photographer