A True Haven for Babies Is on Its Way : Child care: Three women are working to develop a local facility that will provide a homelike setting and legal help for infants from troubled families.

While caring for a foster baby named Ernie one night, Connie Maloney heard a knock on the door of her Manhattan Beach home.

It was Ernie’s mother. That day, she had left her temporary residence--a battered women’s shelter--and headed to court. No one was there to represent Ernie, so his mother, who was going through a drug rehabilitation program, was able to persuade a judge to let her take care of the child.

“I had to give the baby back that moment,” recalled Maloney, 46. “And there was no way she was ready to take that baby back.”

Prodded by the incident with Ernie, Maloney is working to develop a facility in the South Bay that will care for babies from troubled families by providing them a homelike setting as well as an ally in court.

With the aid of Becky Grossman, who has helped teach at a co-op preschool program, and Julie Jacks, who helped begin a day-care program at a Xerox facility, Maloney is trying set up a program modeled after “The Little Blue House” in Washington.

Opened in 1991, the Blue House cares for up to six babies at a time. Child-care workers are on the premises 24 hours a day, and a social worker deals with the government to try to ensure permanent placement of the babies. The organization’s goal is to have the babies adopted by the time they reach their first birthday.

A staff social worker and pro bono legal help represent the babies.

Among the thousands of babies in the foster care system, nearly 1,000 of them each year are abandoned by their mothers in the Los Angeles hospitals where they are born, according to a 1992 survey by the Child Welfare League of America. The South Bay Blue House would target some of those infants. But creating a group home to help them is not simple.

Maloney estimates she would need $250,000 a year for salaries, supplies and insurance. The three women have raised about $1,000. They also need to get licensed, hire workers and, most importantly, obtain a house.

That’s a daunting task, but Maloney, who holds a master’s degree in child development from Loma Linda University, and her colleagues have recruited about 80 volunteers during bimonthly meetings in the area. She plans to apply for funds from the Los Angeles County Department of Children and Family Services for expenses related to the children, and hopes to raise the rest from private donations and fund-raisers.

Martha Lopez, deputy director for the California Department of Social Services Community Care Licensing Division, isn’t optimistic about approving the type of project the women propose. “If (children) are below the age of 6, we don’t want them in a group home,” said Lopez, whose agency approves the opening of all such homes that provide 24-hour non-medical care and supervision to children. “An infant needs to be put in a family setting.”

But Jacquie Dolan, chairman of the board of Friends of Child Advocates and member of the California Children’s Lobby, says the Little Blue House is needed.

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The Little Blue House in Washington also ran into hurdles. Guidelines for establishing such a place didn’t exist, and zoning laws didn’t cover their type of facility. Still, co-founders Patty and Lynne Gartenhaus managed to get the facility set up and have placed 40 babies in three years, they said.

If it opens as planned in 1995, the local Little Blue House would be the first group home serving six or fewer babies up to 2 years old in the South Bay, according to records at Community Care Licensing in Los Angeles.

The house would aid babies during the critical months of their development, said Mary Emmons, executive director of Children’s Institute International, a South Bay emergency shelter for babies.

“They’re gaining language, a sense of who they are, a sense of trust in the world,” Emmons said.

There seem to be benefits for taxpayers. The Little Blue House in Washington says it spent $99 per day on the children in 1992. According to the Child Welfare League survey, the daily boarding cost for abandoned babies in Los Angeles hospitals is $1,165. And if welfare benefits are cut, as suggested by incoming House Speaker Newt Gingrich, the need for low-cost group homes becomes even stronger.

Grossman and Jacks, who each have two children of their own, and Maloney continue to try to drum up support for their idea. Recently the threesome went to Adams Middle School in Redondo Beach to receive a quilt schoolchildren had created for the babies. “My kids already (say): ‘This (quilt) is for the babies,’ ” said Grossman, who is expecting a third child in January. “They love the thought of the babies.”