Council OKs Use of City Land in Child-Care Project

The Glendale City Council on Tuesday approved the use of two city-owned lots next to Pacific Park for a nonprofit child-care program to benefit low-income families.

Child, Youth and Family Services, a nonprofit organization in Los Angeles that runs Glendale’s federally funded Head Start program, will lease the south Glendale property from the city’s Parks and Recreation Department for five years.

Under an arrangement with Glendale’s Community Development Department, the child-care program will serve 60 children in two modular classrooms on the site. The city will use $50,000 in community development block grant funds to landscape the lots, which will become a children’s play area when the city eventually expands Pacific Park.

Mary Beth Lakin, director of the program, said city officials will help find more permanent housing for the program when the lease runs out.

Child, Youth and Family Services, which has operated its child-care program at the College View School in north Glendale since 1984, has searched for three years for a site in south Glendale, where most of its students live.

“The site we have now is not ideal, because the mothers have real transportation problems getting the kids up there,” Lakin said. “This will be right in the neighborhood, convenient to them.”

Lakin said the new site at the corner of Pacific Avenue and Riverdale Drive should be ready by June. But, since the Head Start program has funds only for the period from September through June of each year, it probably will not operate out of the new facility until the next school year, she said.

The Head Start program also will continue to use the College View School to serve 40 children, Lakin said. Head Start’s funding requires that it serve 100 children.