NORTH HOLLYWOOD : Drug Rehab Center to Dedicate Facility

A drug treatment program that began 23 years ago in a cramped Sun Valley building will celebrate the opening of a $10-million facility at the end of the month.

“There’s been a wide range of emotions for many of us who have been here a long time,” said Jack Bernstein, executive director of Cri-Help, which will dedicate its new George T. Pfleger Center, 11027 Burbank Blvd. in North Hollywood, on Nov. 30.

“We literally lived from month to month,” said Bernstein of the first couple of years of the program, which survived partly because the landlord understood and supported the agency’s work to fight drug dependency. “Some months we didn’t pay the rent, to pay other bills.”

The program eventually moved into a building that was previously an orphanage for Jewish boys.

The North Hollywood site was purchased in 1975. As part of a one-year, $10-million project, the old building on the site was torn down and replaced with a modern facility, Bernstein said.

The center is named after a benefactor, the father of one of the center’s former clients. A Newport Beach foundation in Pfleger’s name decided to pay $8 million of the building costs shortly after Pfleger died three years ago, Bernstein said.

Living quarters and counseling areas for the center’s 65 clients have been completed, but a second phase of construction, which will include a lobby and offices, has yet to be finished, Bernstein said. Singer Natalie Cole is scheduled to attend the dedication.

Cri-Help’s financial situation improved over the years as fund-raising efforts improved and as the group won contracts from the California Youth Authority to serve as a treatment facility for inmates shortly before their release, or for those on probation after serving sentences in Los Angeles County Jail.

“We’ve been able to attract a certain number of clients who could afford to pay for services,” Bernstein said.

The group aims to help those who have completed detoxification programs to learn to stay off drugs and get back into society. “The way it is now, if people complete our program, everyone is working by the time they leave here,” Bernstein said.

When it was founded in 1971, Cri-Help was one of the first to provide long-term recovery programs for drug addiction. The program offers professional counseling, a literacy program, family groups, AIDS education and support groups and help in finding jobs. More than half of Cri-Help residents are indigent.