OPCC
Homeless Access Centers Opens
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By Jorge Casuso
September 7 -- Sitting at
the front desk of the old OPCC Drop-in
Center, Kevin Goins was literally
on the front lines -- the first person
the homeless would see when they came
in for food, or a shower or just a
place to hang out.
But with the opening of the new OPCC
Annenberg Access Center Thursday,
Goins will get some respite from the
calls of “'Kevin, Kevin, Kevin,'
all afternoon” as he provides
one-on-one service from a cubicle
in a high-tech office setting.
“It’ll be a lot more
intense and focused,” said Goins,
who is on the access team that directs
the homeless to services that will
help get them off the streets. “Sometimes
people just want to have a safe refuge,
which I understand.
“This forces people to have
goals,” Goins said. “It’s
not a place to just hang around.”
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| City
Manager Lamont Ewell addresses
crowd at opening of new OPCC Annenberg
Access Center. (Photo by Frank
Gruber) |
Larger than the shabby quarters by
the bus yards where for years the
homeless gathered to take care of
basic needs – clean up, grab
a bite, pick up mail – the gleaming
new building is efficiently divided
into spaces that offer everything
from a medical check-up to employment
counseling.
“These programs are designed
to encourage Santa Monica’s
homeless population into programs
that assist,” City Manager Lamont
Ewell told the crowd gathered for
the grand opening. “They are
designed to offer linkages to other
care.
“It’s not intended to
ignore the reality that we have people
in Santa Monica who are in dire need
of support,” said Ewell, responding
to critics who charge that the kinds
of services offered by the access
center lure homeless to the beachside
city.
Recommended by a homeless task force
in 1991, the new 8,100-square-foot
facility at 503 Olympic Boulevard
is the point of entry to Santa Monica’s
extensive homeless services network.
It is a place where the down-and-out
can get everything from a bus token
and a sack lunch to a referral that
can lead to a job and a permanent
roof over their heads.
Most importantly, said OPCC Board
Chair Colette Brooks -- who tried
living on the city streets for a week
to get a first hand glimpse at being
homeless – the new center provides
the simple things that amount to recovering
one’s dignity.
“There was a difference between
the way people treated me,”
said Brooks. “I was stripped
of my dignity.
“To be able to have a place
where you can put your things. . .
and access services. . . that’s
the key,” Brooks said.
The facility and the services it
offers are the result of listening
to the “unhoused people”
who used the City’s old PEN
computer network from the public library
and “told us what they needed,”
said Council member Kevin McKeown.
“The showers just didn’t
wash away dirt, they washed away shame,”
McKeown told the crowd. “And
the keys to the lockers were the keys
to dignity.”
The patio and side of the building
facility will be used by HOPE and
Hand to Hand, to provide the free
meals the groups once handed out in
the City’s parks, and the exam
rooms will be staffed by doctors and
nurses from the Venice Family Clinic,
said Julie Rusk, who heads the City’s
homeless services.
“It was a long time coming,”
Rusk said of the new facility. “It
took a lot of hard work and creativity.”
Designed by local architect and School
Board member Ralph Mechur, the Annenberg
Access Center is the second of two
facilities built though the $19.5
million OPCC capital campaign, “From
Homelessness to Hope,” which
will conclude in December.
“I think Santa Monica is a
very compassionate place,” said
John Maceri, OPCC’s executive
director. “It cares about people,
and that’s what OPCC is all
about.”
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