School Offers Hope for the Homeless

In the shell of a warehouse in the middle of downtown Los Angeles’ skid row lies Charles Vannoy’s hope for salvation.

He is 39 and has been homeless on the city’s toughest streets for most of his life. But among his many needs is one fervent determination: He will celebrate his 41st birthday having achieved a sixth-grade education.

That aspiration may be more reachable come December, with the scheduled opening of the Weingart Center Assn.’s new adult education and employment center, which recently began construction in a gutted warehouse on San Pedro Street near 6th Street.

The $2.3-million project will be the first learning complex on skid row, a 50-square-block area where poverty and homelessness are endemic. About a quarter or more of the population, including Vannoy, cannot read or write. The prospect of state-of-the-art classrooms within walking distance is providing a buzz of excitement for many of them.

“If someone were to break my legs tomorrow, I’d take advantage of this, even if I have to pull myself to the learning center every day,” said Vannoy, whose sturdy build and take-no-nonsense demeanor have earned him the nickname “Bear” on the streets.

The center is a collaboration with the Los Angeles Unified School District. It will effectively be a branch of the Belmont Community Adult School, which will provide half a dozen certified teachers for morning and evening classes in reading, math, English, computer training and preparation for the high school equivalency exam.

Other vocational training classes may be added later, depending on need. The center will also offer job development and placement services and will house the Weingart Center’s Institute for the Study of Homelessness and Poverty. The center will charge a $10 registration fee, but services will otherwise be free.

While the center will draw students from among the about 8,000 homeless people who live in the area, it is also expected to be heavily used by low-wage workers in the nearby garment, toy, fish and produce districts, many of whom are immigrants with limited education and language skills.

“If we can get homeless people some basic education and strengthen the skills of workers so they don’t slip back into joblessness and homelessness, then we might be able to make a difference,” said John F. King, president and CEO of the Weingart Center, which long has been an anchor of services for the area’s homeless.

Surveys of area employers and agencies that serve the homeless indicated a preference for day rather than evening classes. For homeless people who are often idle during the day, that was obvious, but it was also an affirmation of the interest of workers in the area, many of whom have night jobs, said King.

The center’s five classrooms are expected to serve as many as 1,000 people each day, and it is projected that 2,000 homeless and low-income people will achieve their educational and training goals each year.

The project offered the school district a chance to take part in planning and designing an educational facility that will include the latest technology. There will be high-speed Internet access, computers in each classroom and a 25-station computer lab.

District officials are already looking for a few good teachers.

“It does take time to screen teachers because, in addition to teaching skills, we’re looking for people who’ll have a sense of responsibility to serve this population and have some compassion for the circumstances they’re in,” said Dominick Cistone, assistant principal of the Belmont Community Adult School.

Cistone noted that teachers will have to deal with students’ emotional and physical conditions, going beyond their lack of education.

“The challenge we find is motivation, building self-esteem so [students] will go out and be successful,” he said. “One of our jobs will be to conduct follow-up studies of students, to try and keep in touch, which is always difficult with a transient population.”

Motivation is not a problem for Charles Vannoy, despite hardships that seem almost Dickensian. As a youngster in Bell Gardens, he was judged to be mildly retarded and was first placed in special education classes, then sent to Camarillo State Hospital. Years later, he said, doctors realized that he was not retarded but suffered from attention deficit disorder.

But by then, the fortunes of his young life had plummeted even further. He ran away from home when he was 10 and in the fifth grade, and never went back. He said he raised himself on the streets, sleeping on pavement with a thin blanket, doing drugs and drinking most of his childhood away.

Vannoy said he has been sober for about a year and he recently entered Weingart’s residential services program, where he has a room with a single bed, a case manager and medication to check an emotional disorder.

He says he can drive a forklift and has gotten a few jobs under the table, where he didn’t have to fill out an application. He’s done inventories by memorizing numbers and letters. He said he will relish the day when he can accomplish simple tasks like going to the grocery store and reading the food labels.

“I don’t want to get on a bus and have to ask the driver to tell me when Spring Street comes because I can’t spell it myself,” he said forcefully. “I’m trying to better myself.”