HOMELESS IN THE VALLEY : SHORTAGE OF LOCAL SERVICES LEAVES FAMILIES, TEENS IN DIRE STRAITS.

Byline: Yvette Cabrera Daily News Staff Writer

Trying to keep warm as they sat inside their parked car, Darren Teel huddled with his three young sons, his eyes wide and alert, wondering what the night would bring.

Teel went sleepless that night - their first night on the streets with no place to call home - worrying about his family's safety.

``It was scary. We had no food, we didn't have anywhere to go, I couldn't sleep because I didn't know if anyone was going to jump us,'' Teel said. ``It was pretty awful. . . . I never thought in my life that I would be homeless.''

The Teels, now living in a North Hollywood transitional shelter, count themselves among the San Fernando Valley's growing number of invisible homeless.

They are families with young children, the elderly and teen-agers who have joined the burgeoning homeless population that has pushed Valley shelters beyond capacity.

``Particularly in the Valley, more so than any part of the county, you have a lot of stress (on) people working in homeless agencies because they know there is nothing they can do,'' said John Horn, chairman of the San Fernando Valley Homeless Coalition, which represents 70 agencies here serving the homeless.

``The worst hours of the day are the late hours on Friday when you have to tell a person who's homeless: I don't have a place for you to stay,'' said Horn, who sends some people to Pasadena, Santa Monica or downtown due to the space crunch.

Countywide, the number of homeless individuals has increased dramatically since the late 1980s, according to figures provided by Shelter Partnership, a nonprofit organization that provides services to about 200 homeless shelters and social service agencies throughout the county.

On any given night, up to 84,300 people are homeless in Los Angeles County - 11.6 percent, or about 9,700 of them are in the San Fernando Valley, according to Shelter Partnership.

To call attention to the problem, the San Fernando Valley Homeless Coalition convinced the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority, a joint agency of the city and county of Los Angeles, to hold its regular meeting in the Valley.

Meeting in the Valley for the first time at Pacoima's community center recently, LAHSA's commissioners heard pleas for more resources to build more shelters and more low-income housing, as well as the need for other basic necessities for the Valley's homeless.

``I've been working with the homeless for five years in Mission Hills, and there's a lot of sadness out there, and it breaks my heart,'' Mission Hills resident Veronica ``Ronny'' Ayers told the group.

The homeless situation in the Valley is ``very grave,'' and unfortunately Los Angeles has ignored the Valley in the past, said LAHSA Commissioner William Powers, a Northridge resident.

``We have facilities to deal with various homeless populations, but they are woefully inadequate in size and can only meet a limited need. In short, we're talking about a major problem that has not been addressed,'' said Powers, an attorney appointed to the commission by Los Angeles County Supervisor Michael D. Antonovich.

For the estimated 12,000 homeless teens - a number the Shelter Partnership officials say is understated and growing - finding shelter in the Valley may not come easy.

A dearth of homeless agencies for teens in the Valley results in many finding help over the hill, like 14-year-old Mary Rodriguez, a former runaway from Van Nuys.

Rodriguez chose Options House, a nonprofit agency with licensed youth shelters in Hollywood.

``The Options House was good, and it's something a lot of teens need these days,'' said Rodriguez, who said she left home because she couldn't get along with her mother.

``I see a lot of teen-agers out there, sleeping on benches,'' said Rodriguez, now at home.

``It was hard because I'm not usually away from my house,'' said the Van Nuys High School ninth-grader. ``Options House gave me counseling, a roof over my head, (and) they gave me food. . . .''

Leslie Forbes, executive director for Options House, said one-third of her 1,600 clients annually come from the San Fernando Valley.

The agency also runs a 24-hour help hotline, provides temporary shelter, academic tutoring and crisis counseling for parents and their children.

``The feeling is that the number is significantly higher - of 12,000 there's at least 10 percent more,'' Forbes said.

``For the most part, people have this view that these things happen to other people or that it just doesn't happen,'' Forbes said. ``I think these are days of denial.''

An inventory by LAHSA conducted this year found that the Valley has about 1,000 shelter beds - leaving about 90 percent of the area's homeless with no place to go, officials said.

``The problem is that we lack shelters in the Valley - that's our biggest problem. We have nothing like a (Union Rescue) Mission, we have nothing like they have (in) downtown L.A., where I can send somebody for a night of shelter,'' Horn said.

Contrary to popular belief, homelessness has spread not just in the Northeast portions of the Valley, but into the more affluent West Valley as well.

Los Angeles City Councilwoman Laura Chick, who represents the West Valley, said she is seeking more funds for agencies helping the homeless in her district.

``I hear from agencies that we have a growing homeless problem,'' Chick said. ``And I believe that is true because I know that overall the number of families and people with children below the poverty line in Los Angeles is increasing, and that certainly means the West San Fernando Valley is not exempt.''

To fix the problem, people must first re-examine their preconceived notions about who the homeless really are, said Jeffrey Farber, program director of North Hollywood's L.A. Family Housing Corp., a nonprofit agency providing affordable housing to homeless families and individuals.

``That in itself is a barrier that needs to be broken down so that people in communities become more aware and sensitive to the issue,'' Farber said. ``The face of homelessness is not an alien face in our culture and society; it's the face of the family that could be living next door. It's the family you see in a movie theater or in a park.''

Since spending that first night in their car at a Pasadena park, the Teels have lived like nomads wandering from Glendale to Eagle Rock - staying in more than 20 motels over the course of the summer and fall.

Their battered family car was loaded down with all the family's possessions, along with their primary staple - peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.

``It's hard on a family to be homeless and stay together because you have to endure each others' pain,'' Teel said. ``There were times when I could only afford a room for one person, and I had to sneak my family in. Everyday has been so stressful wondering are we going to have a place to stay?''

Determined to forge a new future, the family tried to make ends meet on $1,000 a month.

``We were living day by day, week by week, paycheck to paycheck - there was nothing to put away,'' Teel said. ``Everything was counted by the pennies.''

The Teels found themselves homeless after they turned over all of their $1,200 savings for a deposit on a home they planned to rent in Pasadena only to find that the landlord made off with the money and that the home had been condemned. The family found themselves with no money and no place to live.

The most painful part of the ordeal, Teel says, was seeing how it affected his sons, Freddy, 7, 4-year-old Darren and 13-year-old Aaron.

Aaron wouldn't make any effort to excel in school because of the constant moving, and Teel struggled to explain to his youngest son why he had to use the restroom at a nearby gas station while other children had bathrooms at home.

``It's been hard on everybody, but the kids spent their summer moving around, their birthdays came and went, and we just hoped that they would understand because we weren't in a position to do anything,'' Teel said.

Just last month, the Teels found help at the Trudy and Norman Louis Valley Shelter in North Hollywood, a transitional housing shelter run by L.A. Family Housing Corp.

During the 90 days they are allowed to live free at the shelter, the Teels will be able to save money for a security deposit and a first and last month's rent payment for an apartment of their own. Teel said he also plans to get training so he can become a cable repairman.

He feels it's just the break they need.

``It's a blessing. For right now, I'm thankful that I don't have to worry about not having a roof over my head,'' he said.

Emergency shelters, transitional housing and low-rent permanent housing are scarce in the San Fernando Valley, particularly for homeless families who often shack up with relatives or live out of their cars, studies and homeless agency officials said.

``People have stereotypes of the homeless as alcoholics and drug addicts who almost terrorize their community, or people with mental health illnesses,'' Farber said. ``A large share of the homeless are people who have long work histories, people that have families. These are people who you would know.''

Families now represent the fastest-growing segment of the homeless population, according to the National Resource Center on Homelessness and Mental Illness based in New York and several local agencies serving the homeless.

Nationwide, families represent 36 percent of the homeless population, the second-largest group next to individuals, said Deirdre Oakley, research associate with the resource center.

In Los Angeles County, there are about 49,000 homeless family members - including 34,500 children in the course of a year accounting for 20 percent of the county's homeless, according to 1993-94 Shelter Partnership figures.

Oakley attributes the increase to changes in the welfare system and the restrictive affordable housing market.

``This is a national problem that affects every city in the country as well as rural areas, but it's intensified in the urban areas,'' Oakley said.

In California, the economic recession has pushed both white-collar and blue-collar workers onto unemployment rolls with the loss of more than 480,800 aerospace and electronic industry-related jobs since 1988, according to the Employment Development Department of the California Commission on State Finance.

Nowhere has the impact of these job losses been more acutely felt than in the Valley, where many of these companies were located.

``We're still recovering from the earthquake and the recession - we're bouncing back, but it's a slow bounce,'' said Kimberly Schuler Hall, director community support services at the San Fernando Valley Interfaith Council.

Across the board, the pantries run by the council have seen a 17 percent increase in needy people in the last year, Hall said.

Despite a recent resurgence in new jobs in the Valley, families and individuals, many who once had hefty incomes, are showing up on the doorsteps of homeless agencies, officials say.

In Pacoima, as many as 60 homeless show up weekly at the Hansen Dam Recreational Center to eat the hot meals served by Christ Memorial Church.

``During the holidays, the numbers are higher,'' said the Rev. Daniel Green. ``You find a lot of people who are just one pay day away from being homeless with all the downsizing.''

Even the elderly are finding themselves on the streets, though in much smaller proportions. There are 342 homeless elderly in the Valley, and far more living in poverty on the verge of homelessness, according to a study conducted by LAHSA.

``A lot of people think homelessness is a single-male problem, but it's not,'' said Ileene S. Parker, coordinator of a coalition of 24 food pantries run by the San Fernando Valley Interfaith Council. ``It affects all ages and genders.''

At the West Valley Prince of Peace Episcopal Church in Woodland Hills, where one of the coalition's pantries is run, coordinator Margaret Shively said she has seen an increase in elderly women - some of whom are homeless.

``It's hard to measure up, but there are more,'' Shively said. ``If their marriages break up, there are a lot of women who don't have a pension or Social Security.''

Despite the diverse groups in need, only two agencies provide the bulk of the area's shelter for families and women with children: L.A. Family Housing Corp. and the Women's Care Cottage, also in North Hollywood, which provides 15 emergency beds plus 11 affordable housing units to women and children.

About 70 percent of the 398 available emergency beds in the Valley are provided by the Housing Corp.'s Valley Shelter, which has 245 emergency beds. The rest are provided in smaller portions by other agencies.

There are fewer transitional beds, with only 233 available in the area, Farber said. Valley Shelter has 43 of these but is raising funds for a new 55-unit transitional living center.

Last year alone, L.A. Family Housing Corp. had 700 requests for housing but was only able to take 137, said Farber, adding that hundreds of other families call but don't leave names.

The Northridge Earthquake also played a role, removing 19,439 multifamily units and single-family homes from the city's housing stock - 80 percent of those units in the Valley according to John Wickham, a housing, economic and planning analyst with the Los Angeles Housing Department.

With less available housing, increases in the general population and the economic recession, more and more families are living in overcrowded conditions in the Valley.

``There's not enough support anywhere for affordable housing, and that's one of the reasons we build housing the way we do,'' said Farber, whose agency has built 11 affordable housing complexes in Los Angeles and is in the process of building two more.

``Decent, safe, affordable housing should be a right, not a privilege, and I think our government should look more towards making that happen,'' he said.

CAPTION(S):

4 Photos

Photo: (1--color) Darren Teel and his sons Aaron, 13, left, Freddy, 7, and Darren Jr., 4, moved into the Trudy and Norman Louis Valley Shelter in North Hollywood after spending nights in their car in a Pasadena park.

Evan Yee/Daily News

(2--color) In Pacoima, as many as 60 homeless show up weekly at the Hansen Dam Recreational Center to eat the hot meals served by Christ Memorial Church volunteers.

(3) The Rev. Daniel Green of Christ Memorial Church offers up a prayer before the Wednesday afternoon meal.

Tom Mendoza/Daily News

(4) Three-year-old Natalie Perez, left, laughs as Cynthia Beltran, 4, strokes her hair during play time at the Valley Shelter in North Hollywood.

Michael Owen Baker/Daily News