Group Buys Ex-Post Office for Center to Aid Child Prostitutes

An organization that aids child prostitutes is purchasing the historic Van Nuys post office building for use as a shelter and outreach center, an official said Friday.

Lois Lee, founder of a 10-year-old organization called Children of the Night, said the Sylvan Street building is being purchased for $899,000 and will undergo a $400,000 to $500,000 renovation. It will be turned into a temporary home for 24 prostitutes who will participate in a strict 60-day rehabilitation program, she said.

“My dream has always been to set up a shelter,” Lee said Friday. “It’s been 9 years of struggling to get this far.”

Lee, who said her nonprofit center at 1800 N. Highland Blvd. in Hollywood has helped about 5,000 juvenile prostitutes since 1979, was a 1984 recipient of a President’s Volunteer Action Award. That center will be closed when the Valley center opens, Lee said.

The organization is seeking state licensing permits to operate the Van Nuys shelter, as well as city building permits. Lee said the area’s commercial zoning permits the shelter. Escrow is scheduled to close in January, and renovation will begin in February, Lee said. The target opening date is September, 1989, she said.

Several Van Nuys community leaders, whom Lee approached several months ago, said they had been wary of a center that would house teen-age prostitutes. But they said research into the organization quelled their fears.

“I don’t think it’s going to be a problem,” said Marcia Mednick, director of Vitalize Van Nuys, a nonprofit development corporation that strives to improve the business district where the building is located. “I felt much more reassured when I talked to police and others about the organization.”

Hollywood Site Well-Supervised

Lt. Edward Hockings, who commands Hollywood police detectives and has worked with Children of the Night counselors for 8 years, said the Hollywood center is tightly supervised and has had few problems.

“People in Van Nuys will not even notice that they are there,” Hockings said. “The program is very structured. These kids aren’t hanging around with nothing to do.”

Children of the Night counselors find child prostitutes on the streets and offer them an alternative to their life style, Lee said. They hand out business cards with their hot-line number and tack flyers on street posts. When a youth calls for help, they send a cab to pick her up and bring her to the center.

The center provides counseling, food, legal aid and job referrals, Lee said. Counselors set up work or school programs, and help the youths to either return to relatives or find apartments. They also help them find jobs.

A fund-raising drive for the Van Nuys shelter began about 2 years ago when the group received a “challenge grant” of $200,000, Lee said. If it did not raise enough money to purchase a building by June, 1989, it would lose the $200,000. Lee said that a 1987 profile of the organization on “60 Minutes” boosted its drive, as did a 1985 television movie. The shelter reached the goal.

The group sought a Valley location because of its distance from the Hollywood streets most of the youths are attempting to flee, Lee said. The Valley also offers job opportunities and a suburban environment, she said.

The post office building at 14530 Sylvan St. was built in the 1930s. The U.S. Postal Service sold the building to two Valley attorneys 4 years ago. George Kalman, a real-estate agent representing the lawyers, confirmed that escrow is nearly complete on the purchase.

Lee said the building will retain its architectural integrity. “It will be like a home,” she said.