To help take a little chill off the streets for homeless warriors, the city’s full-service Veterans Winter Shelter reopened in Point Loma on Wednesday. The 150-bed shelter for male veterans has been operated by the local nonprofit Veterans Village of San Diego (VVSD)?since 1997. “It’s about providing a quiet and dignified place where people care about you with compassion and caring,” said Phil Landis, Veterans Village president. “The shelter runs pretty much full the whole four months. Some nights we have a waiting list to get in.” This year’s shelter — once again operating in the red — is structurally and schematically the same as in past years, but it is now under different supervision. Instead of the city supervising shelter activities, the San Diego Housing Commission is now in charge — a change Landis said has worked very well. “The city has been very helpful given the constraints that they have to work with,” Landis said. “We’re very, very pleased with the relationship we have with the city and the Housing Commission in helping us put this worthwhile project together.” Landis said the shelter, located at 2801 Sports Arena Blvd., is still about $30,000 to $40,000 short on operational funding. Thanks to additional city money, however, that figure is less than last year’s operational deficit. “We do have a little bit more funding this year from the city, which will help us, but we continue to run it at a deficit, which means we help participate in the cost of it,” Landis said. Though the shelter has a nightly capacity of 150 homeless people, Landis said the shelter processed 450 non-duplicate Social Security numbers as part of the mandatory registration. This means last year’s shelter helped a record 450 homeless veterans. “There are a lot of people that we served as residents of the shelter,” Landis said. “Some come in and stay for a couple of months, some might come in for a week or 10 days, but we get Social Security numbers and we verify that you are a veteran.” In addition to a warm bed and meals during chilly winter months, the shelter offers a number of services to the veterans it houses. Landis said the winter shelter fits into the city’s homeless picture by providing these services to veterans in need. “We provide counseling services, access to medical care, further assistance at shelters, we try and help people find permanent shelters,” Landis said. “Many of them come to our program, decide that they’ve had enough of this and they want to do something to change their lives.” The shelter serves veterans from all major conflicts. Landis said the average age of veterans taken in is getting younger and younger with each passing year. He expects to see a greater number of veterans this winter from the recent and current conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan. The face of the homeless veteran population is beginning to change and is taking on “a much younger hue,” Landis said. “It’s scary, quite frankly.” Landis expected the shelter to be nearly full on the first day and for the 120 days it remains open until April. He said there have been preliminary talks about keeping the temporary shelter open the entire year, with funding problems representing the most daunting hurdle. “If we had a year-round shelter for veterans, my guess is that we can keep it filled pretty much all year. We would expand our services if this was something that was developed,” Landis said. “But it is strictly concept at this point.” For more information or to donate money to the program, visit www.-vvsd.net. Additional donations can be made by calling Veterans Village executive assistant Rod Stark at (619) 393-2034.