When 21-year-old Gayle Alvarez faced a dark moment in her life last May, not only was she left without much of a support system, she also found herself without a roof over her head.

Over the course of about two months, Alvarez sought out friends and relatives’ couches and lived out of her car. Her odyssey took her to North Hollywood, near Dodger stadium, Chinatown and anywhere else she could find shelter.

“I went wherever the wind took me,” the former Panorama City resident said.

L.A. County Supervisor Kathryn Barger, left, and LAHSA Executive Director Peter Lynn examine a colorful banner on display as they tour the transitional age youth housing facility on Wednesday, March 21, 2018, which was recently opened by The Village Family Services in Burbank. (Photo by Dan Watson)

L.A. County Supervisor Kathryn Barger, right, is welcomed by Zachary Scott, V.P. Development & Communications at The Village Family Services as Barger tours the transitional age youth housing facility on Wednesday, March 21, 2018 which was recently opened by The Village Family Services in Burbank. (Photo by Dan Watson)

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L.A. County Supervisor Kathryn Barger, right, is hugged by one of the young clients of the transitional age youth housing facility as Barger tours on Wednesday, March 21, 2018 which was recently opened by The Village Family Services in Burbank. (Photo by Dan Watson)

Three successful former clients, left, sit down with LAHSA Executive Director, Peter Lynn, second from right, and L.A. County Supervisor Kathryn Barger, right, as they tour the transitional age youth housing facility on Wednesday, March 21, 2018, which was recently opened by The Village Family Services in Burbank. (Photo by

L.A. County Supervisor Kathryn Barger, left, and LAHSA Executive Director Peter Lynn visit one of the “bridge rooms” as they tour the transitional age youth housing facility on Wednesday, March 21, 2018, which was recently opened by The Village Family Services in Burbank. (Photo by Dan Watson)



Olga Flores, Director of Transition Age Youth Services, right, welcomes LAHSA Executive Director Peter Lynn, second from left, as he takes a tour the transitional age youth housing facility on Wednesday, March 21, 2018 which was recently opened by The Village Family Services in Burbank. (Photo by Dan Watson)

Olga Flores, Director of Transition Age Youth Services, right, talks with LA County Supervisor Kathryn Barber, left, as they stop in the hallway as Barger tours the transitional age youth housing facility on Wednesday, March 21, 2018 which was recently opened by The Village Family Services in Burbank. (Photo by Dan Watson)

L.A. County Supervisor Kathryn Barger, visits one of the rooms as she tours the transitional age youth housing facility on Wednesday, March 21, 2018, which was recently opened by The Village Family Services in Burbank. (Photo by Dan Watson)

Alvarez said things fell apart last February when she was diagnosed with a mental illness and had a difficult time accepting it. That sparked friction with her then-boyfriend, and soon she was “kicked out” of their Panorama City apartment in May.

She had also recently stopped working. “I kind of gave up on myself,” she said.

Alvarez’s immediate family was not an option for her, and in fact, growing up she and her sisters worked to escape the emotional and physical abuse inflicted on them by their father. Meanwhile, she struggled to get along with her absentee mother, who is fighting through her own issues with drug abuse and mental illness.

And so, just mere months after more than 5,000 young adults between the ages of 18 and 24 were counted among the homeless during a countywide tally, Alvarez found herself one of them.

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But in July, she stumbled upon a North Hollywood drop-in center for youth and young adults run by The Village Family Services, which happened to be a lead agency that works directly with the countywide Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority to coordinate housing and services.

The Village Family Services helped Alvarez get into temporary housing, and eventually she was able to get back on her feet through a series of brief job placements. She now lives in an apartment in Koreatown that she got with the help of case workers.

That experience with the drop-in center was life-changing for Alvarez, who spoke about it during a tour Wednesday morning focusing on another program recently unveiled by The Village Family Services — a shelter providing 50 “beds” that has now been operating for about a month in Burbank. The temporary housing program serves “transitional age youth” between ages 18 to 24 who are homeless in the San Fernando Valley and was paid for by Measure H, a recently approved sales tax measure that raises money for homeless services.

“These are young people that want an opportunity to begin their life, and get jobs and get an apartment and be self sufficient.” — Kathryn Barger, Los Angeles County supervisor

Alvarez’s audience included homeless services authority Director Peter Lynn and Los Angeles County Supervisor Kathryn Barger, who had come to see the results of about $800,000 in Measure H funds allocated toward the shelter.

Earlier that morning, the two officials and their entourages had crammed down the narrow hallways of the second-floor walk-up tucked inconspicuously between a sauna spa and a windows-and-doors shop on Victory Boulevard. They got peeks into the sparse, bunkbed-filled rooms and talked to the young people living there.

“These are young people that want an opportunity to begin their life, and get jobs and get an apartment and be self-sufficient,” Barger said after the tour.

Barger said the county’s role is to be a “de facto parent” to them, because many of the young people who fall into homelessness are coming out of the foster care or probation system that put them under the county’s custody.

“What I took out of today is that we need to do more, and these are youth … who are the most vulnerable population within the county, because these are kids who are aging out,” she said.

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Alvarez said that while she was not part of the foster care system, she has had an experience in which there was little substantial involvement from either of her own parents. She said she came to The Village Family Services before the new young adult shelter opened, and was placed in a shelter for adults, run by another organization, LA Family Housing.

What is ideal about this new Burbank shelter is that this will allow young people to live with others their own age, she said.

“If I’m being honest, this facility is a lot better, because it’s a safe space,” Alvarez said. During her time at LA Family Housing’s facility, she said she roomed with several other girls, and “we shared a lot with elders, a bunch of other random people.”

The Village Family Services officials said Wednesday that they ideally want to avoid exposing the young adults to older, homeless individuals who are sometimes dealing with an “array” of more serious issues and may not always serve as good “role models.”

Irma Seilicovich, CEO of The Village Family Services, said their drop-in center, and now the shelter program, grew out of a desire to help young people without family support or who are dropped from the foster care system.

“When you … have your own children and see how much support they need after 18, and they’re raised with parents, they have their economic needs (taken care of) and they have their school finished, and you see how much help they need?” she said. “How are children who are raised in foster care going to be on the street on their own going to be able to cope financially?”

The Village Family Services officials say the need for this type of housing is great, pointing to the frequent outreach they do at encampments in nearby washes, parks, libraries and the areas around local freeways.

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Some of the young adults may not be so noticeable, Seilicovich said. On any given day at a Metro station, “if you stop there and you look, you will see them with backpacks,” she said. “It’s not that they are waiting for a train or going anywhere. You see them there for hours.”

So the 50 beds they just opened were quickly filled and there is a long waiting list, according to Deborah Hoffman, vice president of programming. She said that within a week of the shelter opening, they had at least 40 beds filled already.

Moultrie Potter, who came to The Village Family Services for help about two years ago, said he had always expected to do things on his own, every step of the way. When he first came to Los Angeles from New York City, he felt relatively isolated, even though he was among the many young people like himself who were homeless, he said.

“I used to sleep in parks,” the 24-year-old said. “It’s dangerous and it gets cold. You don’t know who to trust.”

So it was a change for Potter, who now lives in Valley Glen, when he came to The Village Family Services. He said the staff there work hard to deal individually with the unique struggles faced by the young people who come to them.

“We have to give them a lot of credit there,” Potter said. “Everyone’s different. You can’t talk to someone in the same way. Being that they can do it and being that we can vouch for them, it really shows their characters.”

Alvarez and other young adults who have gone through The Village Family Services say they do see the housing case managers as parental figures.

James Lovato, who came to the drop-in center when he was 18, said he sometimes refers to one case manager as “dad.” The 20-year-old Lovato was able to find housing for awhile, but recently ran into some complications. So he is at the new shelter for now. He said he likes the dorm-like atmosphere and describes the supervisors there as easy to relate to but also willing to lay down the rules.

“There’s also no drugs here either, because we get searched,” he said.

Alvarez, who has her eyes on a degree in social work, is now on the other side, employed as a “peer” worker at the drop-in center. She says she is angling to get promoted to doing case managing.

“I do get that parent vibe,” she said of the The Village Family Services staff. “They hold you accountable. They help you out, but at the same time they check you.”