Shelter Is Turnaround Point for Runaways

Sandy, a 17-year-old runaway from the Bakersfield area, hitchhiked to Hollywood three years ago and took up residence in “squats�--street parlance for abandoned buildings. Panhandling to eat, it wasn’t long before a pimp began using her for prostitution.

Then, about six months ago, she said counselors for Angel’s Flight, a group which runs a crisis center for runaway and homeless youth, found her walking the streets. Now, Sandy said, she’s planning to return to high school.

“They gave me food. They’re here when I need someone to talk to,� she recalled Wednesday. “They encourage you to go on. They say, ‘Look forward to your next day.’ �

Stepping up its efforts to help youngsters like Sandy, the five-year-old organization on Wednesday formally opened its first inner-city shelter for runaways on Westlake Avenue in the shadow of downtown skyscrapers.

The group has long had storefront offices, such as the Hollywood facility and another in Los Angeles’ Skid Row. But now for the first time, the Angel’s Flight crisis program, started in 1982 by Cardinal Timothy Manning, has a 20-bed facility where runaways, 18 years old and under, can be housed for up to two weeks.

“We try to become their friends,� Greg Carlsson, 26, a counselor, said while taking visitors on a tour of the shelter, a former orphanage. “When they come into a crisis situation, we hope they’ll call us.�

Carlsson, fresh from working with troubled youngsters in the red light district of Amsterdam, and another counselor, Cassie Miller, drive around town for Angel’s Flight in a cream-colored van, looking for troubled children such as Sandy.

Brother Phil Mandile , the center’s director, said the Angel’s Flight organization recently purchased the facility with a $500,000 loan from the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Los Angeles, under whose auspices the group operates.

The program, said Mandile, 45, who worked with street gangs in East Los Angeles for 10 years, is entirely voluntary. “The kids have to want to get off the street,� he said.

Angel’s Flight officials and police say the program is critical in turning around the lives of the thousands of runaway teen-agers aimlessly walking the streets of Los Angeles and, more often than not, being preyed upon by the city’s criminal elements.

Last year, Angel’s Flight counselors helped 2,186 young people, including 800 first-time runaways and 1,152 repeat runaways. The youngsters are offered food, clothing, counseling and medical assistance. About 100 volunteers and a paid staff of 20 will run the around-the-clock home away from home, which expects its first temporary tenants in a few weeks.

Up to now, according to Los Angeles Police Department Lt. Edward T. Hocking, runaways largely have been picked up by police patrols and booked for being a runaway, an offense which doesn’t carry a jail sentence or a fine. Then, he said, they’re turned over to a caseworker who usually places them in an overnight county-financed home.

Only 28 Beds Available

In all, said Hocking, chief of the Hollywood detective division, there are 14 such facilities, each with only two beds. They’re called “SODA homes,� an acronym for status offender detention alternative. Finally, he said, a case worker decides whether they’ll be placed in permanent foster facilities, sent back home or released back on the streets.

Teen-agers on the streets “for any length of time will become either a victim or a suspect,� said Hocking, whose Hollywood jurisdiction is infamous for attracting runaways from around the nation.

But the new Angel’s Flight facility, he said, is different. It represents, he said, a dramatic new step toward rehabilitating runaways who, if they decide to stay at the facility, won’t have to go through the trauma of being arrested and, critically important, will have professional counseling aimed at turning their troubled lives around. “It’s a place they can turn to,� Hocking said.