Born-Again Anti-Drug Facility

Five years ago, a national nonprofit corporation and former First Lady Nancy Reagan tried to open a residential drug treatment facility in Lake View Terrace. The proposed site, in that northeast foothill section of the San Fernando Valley, was to have been the 15 acres of the former Lake View Medical Center. But the effort foundered on the rock of neighborhood opposition.

Now, a scaled-down version of the facility will come before the Los Angeles City Council Wednesday. It is proposed by the same corporation--Phoenix House--that floated the 1988 plan. The program is described as regimented and relying on 24-hour supervision, group, family and individual counseling, peer pressure and on-site high school classes.

The effort is opposed by outgoing Seventh District Councilman Ernani Bernardi, by his newly elected successor, Richard Alarcon, and by a homeowners group called the Lake View Terrace Improvement Assn. Concerns include increased crime, a loss of privacy and lower property values. Phoenix House officials, however, appear to have gone a long way toward addressing these fears. The City Council should approve the treatment facility.

First, it is considerably less ambitious than before. It is to be a 150-bed treatment facility for adolescents 13 to 17 years old. Gone is a 60-bed adult treatment facility, drug counselor training program and research center.

Also, Phoenix House officials are on record as saying that referrals from the county Department of Children’s Services would be adolescents from abusive households who were wards of the court and that Probation Department referrals would be accepted only if there was no history of arson, violent behavior or severe psychological problems.

Phoenix House officials have won over a second organization, the Lake View Terrace Home Owners Assn., which opposed the 1988 project. Supporters also include a resident who would share a wall with the proposed facility and who says that opponents are misinformed and acting out of unfounded fear.

Phoenix House could be held closely accountable for this facility. The center would address a burgeoning need for adolescent drug treatment facilities in the Valley and Los Angeles as a whole.