REGIONAL SITES AT THE HEART OF HOMELESS PLAN $80 MILLION PROGRAM LOOKS FOR WILLING COMMUNITIES.

Byline: TROY ANDERSON Staff Writer

Los Angeles County officials disclosed details Friday of their $80 million plan to fight homelessness, including paying for an outreach program to find communities willing to accept ``regional stabilization centers'' that are at the core of the effort.

Supervisors are set to vote Tuesday on the plan, which is designed to boost shelter capacity, enhance existing programs, provide rental assistance and eviction prevention and ensure that homeless people discharged from jails and hospitals are not dumped back on the streets.

But the plan already is drawing fire for its $800,000 outreach campaign to deal with ``anticipated adverse community reaction'' to proposed homeless shelters and plans to locate centers throughout the county.

The proposed centers have drawn the ire of some communities adamantly opposed to allowing the county to build new facilities or expand existing ones to serve as souped-up homeless shelters where a variety of services would be provided.

`An outrage'

``This $800,000 on an outreach program is an outrage,'' said Kris Vosburgh, executive director of the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association. ``Those communities who have said they don't want these centers are showing good judgment. These become homeless magnets.

``As an example, when Santa Monica was feeding them on the City Hall lawn, they were drawing the homeless from all over the county.''

Chief Administrative Officer David Janssen said county officials are talking with various communities to find sites willing to accept what will probably be renamed ``homeless access centers.''

``The approach is adversarial, rather than engaging in a partnership,'' said Tony Bell, spokesman for Supervisor Michael D. Antonovich. ``That's an ineffective strategy.''

Spending plan

The $80 million plan also would spend $32 million on city and community programs and $48 million on county programs.

Of the $32 million, $11.6million would be spent on emergency and transitional shelters and affordable housing and on two new ``safe havens'' to serve homeless single adults with mental illness and substance-abuse problems.

A total of $20.4 million would be spent on programs that seek to prevent or reduce homelessness.

Of the remaining $48 million, $20 million would be set aside as a revolving loan fund for affordable housing, providing low-cost financing to developers that could support construction of 100 affordable-housing units the first year of operation and 200 units every year after.

About $17.3 million would be spent on rental subsidies, moving assistance and eviction-prevention programs, helping the homeless discharged from county jails and hospitals and homeless foster and delinquent youths into homes.

About $4 million would be spent on administrative programs to help get homeless people signed up for Supplemental Security Income benefits, and $5.9 million would go to winter and year-round shelter beds, a homeless court in Santa Monica and other expenses.

Frank Tamborello, interim director of the Los Angeles Coalition to End Hunger and Homelessness, said he is concerned that many of the programs bar homeless people who have no identification, felony convictions, behavioral problems and undiagnosed mental illnesses.

``At the end of spending $80 million, we don't want to see the same folks who are on the streets now being shut out of the programs,'' Tamborello said. ``We want the county to be on the lookout for the innovative, flexible programs that can help deal with some of the people who need the help the most.''

troy.anderson(at)dailynews.com

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