Center for Teen Parents in Lawndale Loses Lease, Searches for New Home

A Lawndale center that has provided social and health services to hundreds of South Bay teen-age mothers and fathers is searching for a new home.

Officials of the 7-year-old Youth and Family Center learned last week that the Centinela Valley Union High School District, which owns the building that houses the center, plans to convert the 7,700-square-foot building to classrooms. The center’s lease expires July 31.

Even though center officials say they do not know where the facility can move, center Director Gayle Wilson Nathanson said she is hopeful services can continue elsewhere without interruption.

Nathanson said she is talking to Inglewood and Los Angeles school officials about relocating the center within their boundaries.

She declined to detail those discussions. “I think things are too premature,” Nathanson said. “There are all kinds of issues to be worked out.”

Center Discussions

Inglewood school district officials said Nathanson has talked with them about the center and its future. Earlier this year, Nathanson worked with Inglewood officials to seek a state grant to establish a center in the Inglewood district, but the proposal was denied. There is still interest in working with Nathanson, an Inglewood district official said, but the school system’s severe financial difficulties are an obstacle.

A spokeswoman for the Los Angeles Unified School District was unable to verify whether discussions were taking place between the district and the center.

The center was established in 1981 when the Centinela Valley school district--which serves the Lawndale, Hawthorne and Lennox areas--agreed to lease the building to the Centinela Valley YMCA. Nathanson ran the center under YMCA auspices until last year, when the center broke away and established itself as a nonprofit organization with its own board of directors. The lease that expires this month is held by the YMCA, although the center was seeking its own.

Nathanson said the center has assisted hundreds of adolescent parents since it was founded. Among other programs, it offers a child-care facility and classes on child abuse prevention, parenting and career guidance. Programs are geared not only to the young mother, but to the father and the families of both.

Coordinated Schedules

Parenting classes are coordinated with school calendars since many of the young parents are still in school. All other services run continuously.

“The center provides full services,” said Thomas Lakin, president of Los Angeles Southwest College and a member of the center’s board of directors. “They don’t just try to take care of the young pregnant girl and then (leave her) on her own after the child is born.”

The center’s funds come primarily from the state, although it also receives local and federal money. Its budget for the 1988-89 fiscal year, which began this month, is about $950,000.

The center employs 42 people, including a nurse, professional health-care and social workers. During the most recent school year, 290 teen-age mothers and fathers were enrolled in the center’s programs.

The decision not to lease the building to the center was made by district trustees Tuesday at their regular meeting. Although several school officials said afterward that they are sympathetic to the center’s needs and the difficulty it may face in finding another home, the district is faced with overcrowded conditions and needs the building.

‘No Room’

For example, the district conducts 12 special-education classes in two portable trailers, neither of which have proper heating or air-conditioning systems, the officials said.

“We have no room, absolutely no room,” Trustee Ruth Morales said in a telephone interview.

But Nathanson called the trustees’ decision an “outrage” that could deprive South Bay communities of much-needed social services if the center is forced to relocate outside the area.

“It’s an unsophisticated school board dealing with very complex urban issues,” Nathanson said.

Also dismayed by the board’s decision were some teen-agers who have turned to the center for aid.

Larry Escobar, 18, a high school dropout who, along with his girlfriend, 16-year-old Gricelda Garcia, have participated in the center’s programs, criticized the school district for failing to understand problems faced by teen-agers. Garcia gave birth to a girl 16 months ago, and the couple plan to marry.

“The people who are doing this don’t have sons and daughters like us,” said Escobar, who works as a gardener. “If they did, they would leave this center open.”

“I wouldn’t have known a lot of stuff on my own,” said Michelle Mercado, 18, an unwed mother who moved from New York to Los Angeles to be with a sister after she got pregnant. She said she knew little about what to expect from motherhood.

Mercado recently graduated from the La Vita School, a county-operated school for pregnant teen-agers that is located next door to the center. Her baby, Che’Ante, was born six weeks ago.

Nathanson credited part of the center’s effectiveness to its proximity to La Vita.

Child-Care Program

Girls who attend La Vita are able to take advantage of the center’s programs, including child care. If their baby is born in the middle of the semester, for example, the center provides child-care services until the semester is over and the girl is sent back to her regular high school.

“If the girls don’t have child care, they just won’t get to school,” said Betty Hardie, La Vita’s principal. She said the school, which serves pregnant teen-agers from the Palos Verdes Peninsula to Inglewood, may be forced to look for alternative services if the center is forced to move.

Nathanson said the center’s summer classes for expectant mothers will begin Tuesday. Although the session doesn’t end until mid-August--two weeks after the present lease expires--she is confident the session will not be cut short.

“I have just decided that,” Nathanson said. “It is just not acceptable.”