By Jorge Casuso

March 12 -- It didn’t take long for OPCC officials to realize that the agency’s new 55-bed homeless shelter near the City Yards would be smashing success with its clients.

Shortly after its grand opening last October, a homeless man toured the 22,000-square-foot facility and declared he wanted to give up the private apartment the agency had lined up for him and move in.

“We talked him out of it,” said Lou Anne White, the shelter’s project director.

Photos courtesy of Killefer Flammang Architects

Designed by Killefer Flammang Architects, the two-story building is as close as one can get inside four walls to the outdoor freedom many homeless people grow to crave.

The remodeled industrial building at the corner of Cloverfield Boulevard and Michigan Avenue features sweeping windows, skylights and bright airy spaces. Even the courtyard walls have openings to bring the outside in, a response to the City’s suggestion to avoid barriers.

“It sort of evolved,” said Wade Killefer, who runs the local firm with his wife, Barbara Flammang.”We talked about it, and continually were changing it. It was very collaborative.”

The architects sought input from the homeless clients to help shape the building and decide what it would offer, Killefer and White said. Their input is best seen in the courtyard with its benches and vines.

“They wanted a place for animals, an open space, a place that’s inside and outside where they could do physical stuff,” White said. “One guy came and started doing exercises.”

The clients also wanted “a private place to sleep and rooms where they could gather,” White said.’

The sleeping areas have tall ceilings and natural light that make the cubicles with the beds seem larger and airier, Killefer said.

The building, which uses green materials, also features art works from the nearby galleries at Bergamot Station, a lounge, meeting rooms, separate sleeping areas for men and women and a kitchen on each of the two floors.

“We can actually smell food cooking,” said White. “Talk about moving up. You should see where we were before.”

The facility provides 55 beds, twice as many as in the drop-in center near Seventh Street and Colorado Avenue where OPCC housed its former shelter, officials said. Ten of the beds are reserved for emergencies.

Most of those who move in are battling substance abuse or mental illness, and the shelter often provides their first indoor living arrangement in years, officials said.

“Folks down here come off the streets,” White said. “They come to get stable, not have to worry where their food’s coming from. Usually (the problem) is the mental health, then the addiction.”

“You don’t have to be clean, you don’t have to be sober,” said Killefer. “You just have to be safe.

“Get them housed, get them fed, then talk about their problems,” he said. “There are no conditions.”

The sense of freedom fostered by the ambience is reflected in the way the facility is run, White said. It is a place where the clients help shape the policies.

“People don’t just want a lot of rules,” White said. “They wanted freedom. They wanted to be inside, but they wanted to decide stuff.

“We’re a community,” she said. “We decide what the rules are together.”

The clients have a say in everything from the kinds of programs offered to the time the lights go off, White said.

“At first, they wanted the lights on until 11,” she said. “After the first meeting they decided to turn off the lights at nine.”

The women, she said, “like it darker,” while the men “always have the lights on.”

Killefer, whose firm has designed 10 apartment buildings in Downtown Santa Monica and transformed 40 more in Downtown Los Angeles, said the process went smoothly.