They were used after the Camp fire. Now these 30 trailers will go to homeless families in L.A.

Thirty trailers that once were used in the wake of the Camp fire are coming to Los Angeles over the next two weeks to be used as temporary homes for homeless families.

Many details remain unknown. But the trailers, offered as part of Gov. Gavin Newsom’s latest initiative to address homelessness, should arrive by Feb. 7, a spokeswoman for L.A. County Supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas said.

County officials were vetting three parking lots and a vacant parcel in South Los Angeles, each designated by the Board of Supervisors this week as potential sites for shelters. They expect about 10 trailers to be placed at each site.

Medical service tents also will be provided by the state. Water and sewage service will be brought to the temporary homes, and the county will contract with a service provider to operate them.

HOPICS, a homeless services agency based in South L.A., will select the families who will live in the trailers.

“This is one of the many tools in the toolbox we are using to address the crisis head-on,” Newsom said in a statement Wednesday announcing the plan.

Ridley-Thomas, co-chair of the governor’s statewide homelessness task force, said Newsom “is demonstrating the ingenuity, resourcefulness and urgency needed to tackle this undeniable emergency.”

Although sheltering 30 families will make no noticeable difference in the county’s unsheltered homeless population — about 44,000 people — state and county leaders see the plan as a demonstration of their resolve to take immediate and concrete measures to address homelessness.

It began when Newsom included an offer of 100 emergency trailers to cities and counties as part of his Jan. 8 executive order to increase homeless housing and add shelter beds across California.

Oakland received the first delivery of 15 trailers last week.

In a vote Tuesday, the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors requested 30 trailers and designated the four potential sites. Newsom released a statement Wednesday approving the request.

County officials have begun vetting the sites to ensure they will be adequate. The supervisors also directed county staff to continue looking for other sites as backups.

The sites under consideration are:

• The parking lot that served the former Probation Department building at 3606 Exposition Blvd. in the city of Los Angeles.
• County-owned land at 1326 W. Imperial Highway in the unincorporated community of Athens, adjacent to where the “Safe Landings” Interim Housing and Clinical Services Project is expected to be built this year.
• A parking lot at 8509 S. Broadway in the city of Los Angeles, though it has already been leased to a homeless services provider.
• A parking lot at 1968 W. Adams Blvd. in the city of Los Angeles. It’s owned by a faith organization that is interested in leasing the lot for interim housing.

The trailers are going primarily to South Los Angeles because it has the highest concentration of homeless families.

Also on Tuesday, the supervisors ordered the county’s chief executive to prepare a Comprehensive Crisis Response Strategy that would rapidly provide housing or shelter options for people living on the streets who are ready and willing to come indoors.

The county’s Homeless Initiative and Office of Emergency Management are to report back in 60 days on strategies to ensure that housing and services are available for all who are willing to move indoors.