Politics
Authority OKs housing change
The city’s largest provider of services for the homeless is expected to assume control of facility.
By Jason Wells
CITY HALL — The Housing Authority on Tuesday unanimously approved a change of operators for a 13-unit transitional housing facility for abused women that, if it passes federal review, would start to take women and single-mother families who have not suffered from domestic abuse.
PATH Achieve Glendale, the city’s largest homeless services provider, is expected to assume control of the facility from the Glendale YWCA in the coming months. According to the city, federal housing officials have already indicated they would give final approval.
The YWCA, which focuses its services on victims of domestic violence, has operated the facility for years, but administrators said it has become increasingly difficult to fit the facility and its federal funding requirements into the nonprofit’s narrow service model.
The transitional housing facility will continue to serve only women and single-mother families, but not all clients under PATH Achieve’s operation will need to have domestic abuse issues, city officials said.
Still, PATH Achieve Executive Director Natalie Profant-Komuro told the Housing Authority on Tuesday that at least 25% of the facility’s capacity will be reserved for victims of domestic violence.
The change had some authority members, including City Councilmen Bob Yousefian and Ara Najarian, worried that it could mean reduced resources for domestic abuse victims, a concern service providers said wasn’t warranted.
“It wasn’t meant as a ceiling, it was meant as a floor in terms of numbers,” Profant-Komuro said.
Many homeless single women and children have some sort of tie to domestic violence, and even with the change of operations to include a more broad spectrum of clients, local women who are seeking shelter from abuse will see no change in the amount of resources available to them, said Kathie Mathis, director of domestic violence programs for the Glendale YWCA.
The facility’s location is secret since it will continue to host women who are in hiding from their abusers.
Women who are seeking shelter from abusive men are sent to shelter outside the city, but the Glendale YWCA takes in women from other communities, Mathis said.
As such, the transition in operations from the YWCA to PATH Achieve is viewed as an expansion of homeless services, rather than a reduction in domestic violence resources, she said.
Even with the additional financial responsibility PATH Achieve will assume when taking over the project, including the need to come up with an annual $57,000 in private donations to match against federal grants, Jess Duran, assistant director of the Community Development and Housing Department, assured the Housing Authority that the nonprofit was more than qualified to take the project on.
The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, which is the project’s major funder, has indicated that it would sign off on the proposal as long as the change of use fits in with the city’s overall needs.
PATH Achieve has already been involved with the pre-screening of existing clients at the facility to ensure the transition will occur as “smoothly and as seamlessly as possible,” Duran said.
Those involved in the proposal say they hope to complete the transition on or before July 1.
JASON WELLS covers City Hall. He may be reached at (818) 637-3235 or by e-mail at jason.wells@latimes.com.
PATH Achieve Glendale, the city’s largest homeless services provider, is expected to assume control of the facility from the Glendale YWCA in the coming months. According to the city, federal housing officials have already indicated they would give final approval.
The YWCA, which focuses its services on victims of domestic violence, has operated the facility for years, but administrators said it has become increasingly difficult to fit the facility and its federal funding requirements into the nonprofit’s narrow service model.
The transitional housing facility will continue to serve only women and single-mother families, but not all clients under PATH Achieve’s operation will need to have domestic abuse issues, city officials said.
Still, PATH Achieve Executive Director Natalie Profant-Komuro told the Housing Authority on Tuesday that at least 25% of the facility’s capacity will be reserved for victims of domestic violence.
The change had some authority members, including City Councilmen Bob Yousefian and Ara Najarian, worried that it could mean reduced resources for domestic abuse victims, a concern service providers said wasn’t warranted.
“It wasn’t meant as a ceiling, it was meant as a floor in terms of numbers,” Profant-Komuro said.
Many homeless single women and children have some sort of tie to domestic violence, and even with the change of operations to include a more broad spectrum of clients, local women who are seeking shelter from abuse will see no change in the amount of resources available to them, said Kathie Mathis, director of domestic violence programs for the Glendale YWCA.
The facility’s location is secret since it will continue to host women who are in hiding from their abusers.
Women who are seeking shelter from abusive men are sent to shelter outside the city, but the Glendale YWCA takes in women from other communities, Mathis said.
As such, the transition in operations from the YWCA to PATH Achieve is viewed as an expansion of homeless services, rather than a reduction in domestic violence resources, she said.
Even with the additional financial responsibility PATH Achieve will assume when taking over the project, including the need to come up with an annual $57,000 in private donations to match against federal grants, Jess Duran, assistant director of the Community Development and Housing Department, assured the Housing Authority that the nonprofit was more than qualified to take the project on.
The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, which is the project’s major funder, has indicated that it would sign off on the proposal as long as the change of use fits in with the city’s overall needs.
PATH Achieve has already been involved with the pre-screening of existing clients at the facility to ensure the transition will occur as “smoothly and as seamlessly as possible,” Duran said.
Those involved in the proposal say they hope to complete the transition on or before July 1.
JASON WELLS covers City Hall. He may be reached at (818) 637-3235 or by e-mail at jason.wells@latimes.com.
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