Sanctuary Here : ‘Safe Place’ Program for Runaways Gets Under Way

Last summer, late at night, Joel Zrelak would notice several teen-agers hanging around the Rossmoor Bowl in Seal Beach. He wondered if they were runaways without a place to sleep or anybody to turn to for help.

Now, some of them may turn to Zrelak.

The bowling alley and four other businesses in Seal Beach and Los Alamitos put up signs in their windows Friday saying that they are a “Safe Place,” the name of a teen-age counseling program for runaways that will also provide a place to stay overnight.

The yellow and black signs depict an adult protecting a child.

Whenever a young person asks for help at a Safe Place, an employee of that establishment has been instructed to call the Casa Youth Shelter in Los Alamitos, a United Way agency that sponsors the program.

Myldred Jones, founder of the shelter on Reagan Street, said the center has 22 on-call, trained volunteers who can be dispatched in 15 minutes to assist youths seeking help. If necessary, a youth may be taken to the runaway center for temporary shelter and counseling.

The Safe Place program was started three years ago in Louisville, Ky., where there are now 250 Safe Place sites, and it has spread to other cities nationwide.

At a press conference Friday to kick off the Safe Place program in Orange County, city and community leaders from Los Alamitos, Seal Beach and Cypress and a person described as national youth advocate said they hoped the Safe Place signs become widespread.

“Whenever they see the sign, we want them to know someone can help them,” said James M. Walker, director of the National Resources Center for Youth Service in Oklahoma.

Walker said runaways are often thought of as “adolescents who prefer to do what they want and don’t obey their parents.”

But many are physically and sexually abused, Walker said, or come from broken families in “upheaval” over problems such as unemployment or teen pregnancy.

In some cases, parents don’t want them back, Walker said.

Jones said an estimated 10,000 teen-age runaways flock to Southland beaches each summer because they think it’s safe and “glamorous.”

She said she expects heavy demand for the shelter’s 12 beds but believes that most runaway’s problems can be solved simply by arranging contacts between the youths and their parents.

She said she hopes to expand the program to other parts of Orange County after three months and train 100 volunteers. Already, Jones said, several firms in Cypress have pledged to become Safe Places next week.

The new Safe Places in Seal Beach and Los Alamitos are Grandmas’s Ice Cream and Candies at Main Street and Ocean Avenue; 7-Eleven at 12th Street and Pacific Coast Highway; Rossmoor Bowl, 12311 Seal Beach Blvd.; Sam’s Mini-Mart, 10772 Los Alamitos Blvd., and Bob’s Big Boy at Katella Avenue and Los Alamitos Boulevard.

The Amparo Youth Shelter in Garden Grove, Laurel House in Tustin and the South Laguna Shelter in South Laguna also provide beds and counseling for troubled youths.