Agency OKs Gets $750,000 for Free Clinic : Hollywood: The low-interest loan approved by the redevelopment agency will pay for a center to serve teen-age runaways.

City redevelopment officials have approved a $750,000 low-interest loan to allow the Los Angeles Free Clinic to buy a site in Hollywood for a youth center whose main mission would be to provide health and social services to teen-age runaways.

Underscoring the need for such a facility was a report issued this week by a coalition of state and private social workers, which found that thousands of runaways in the Hollywood area have no access to any kind of basic medical care. Many of the targeted youths are suffering from use of drugs and alcohol, prostitution and malnutrition, the report found.

The Free Clinic satellite office, to be located at 6043 Hollywood Blvd., would maintain a team of physicians, social workers, AIDS and drug abuse specialists, and peer counselors who will review each person’s case and develop a plan to coordinate their care, clinic officials said.

“We are really excited about the project. There really are no low-cost health providers in Hollywood,” said Gary Bess, executive director of the Free Clinic.

The low-interest loan, to be made through the Community Redevelopment Agency, received final approval from agency officials earlier this month after an agreement had been reached over the site of the new youth center, CRA spokesman Marc Littman said this week.

Littman said the funding must still be approved by the City Council, but no problems are expected.

The loan allows the nonprofit clinic to buy a two-story commercial building near the intersection of Hollywood Boulevard and Gower Street, an area long considered a magnet for runaways and transient youth from around the nation.

The center will provide a variety of services for abused and runaway youth, some of whom are as young as 12. The purchase and renovation of the building are expected to cost $1.9 million, according to the clinic’s development director, Andi Sobbe.

The clinic will provide prenatal care for pregnant girls. It also will provide medical care for teen-agers of both sexes, with particular focus on problems relating to prostitution, rape, drug and alcohol abuse, suicide attempts, and physical abuse.

Sharing office space with the Free Clinic will be the Los Angeles Youth Network, which provides shelter for runaways, and the Los Angeles Commission on Assaults Against Women. The clinic will coordinate its services with those of the two agencies, Littman said. He said construction work will begin in early 1991 with completion scheduled for the fall.

The Free Clinic, founded in 1967 to provide health care for low-income individuals, expects to treat up to 75 patients each weekday at the Hollywood facility.

Clinic officials estimate that about 4,000 high-risk “street kids” roam around Hollywood Boulevard and the Sunset Strip each day, and some outreach experts estimate that there are 10,000 teen-age runaways citywide.

At a news conference Tuesday, the California Child, Youth and Family Coalition sharply criticized the state for failing to adequately protect teen-age runaways and for failing to provide access to health care.

The coalition, in its report, said runaway youths must in the future rely more on private nonprofit programs, such as the Free Clinic, because state programs for them are limited in scope, “seriously under-funded and too few in number to even begin to address the problem adequately.”

Gary Yates, chairman of the coalition and an associate director at Childrens Hospital of Los Angeles, said most runaway youths fear and mistrust hospitals. The Free Clinic’s headquarters, at 8405 Beverly Blvd., is too far away to be of much use to them, Yates added.

Bess said the project already has support at all levels of government: Los Angeles County Supervisor Ed Edelman has secured $225,000 for the project in the form of county community development funds, Los Angeles City Councilman Michael Woo helped secure the Community Redevelopment Agency loan, and state Sen. David Roberti (D-Los Angeles), has arranged for more than $300,000 in state health services grant funds for the project, Bess said.

The loan to the Free Clinic is for four years at 6% simple interest, Littman said.