Considered the first step in a journey to becoming housed again, a new center that includes showers, bathrooms and storage bins will be available for homeless people in North Hollywood early next month.
As the city inches closer to opening more shelters and affordable housing in the San Fernando Valley, the new $5.7 million facility at 11839 Sherman Way, near Lankershim Boulevard, will serve as a “navigation center,” a starting point to getting sheltered, employed and eventually housed.
The facility is being billed by elected officials as the first of its kind in the city. But it took significant convincing over the past few years to get it built.
“Over the years I’ve had people tell me that this isn’t a solution, that the problem is much bigger than this, and that this is just a band-aid,” said Laurie Craft of Hope of Valley, the operator of the facility. But Craft said that even a band-aid serves a purpose — to “facilitate and promote healing” and to prevent people from deteriorating into even worse condition.