County Considers Leasing 2 Van Nuys Group Homes

Citing overcrowding so severe at the only county-run children’s home that delinquents are housed with mentally disturbed and retarded youths, the Board of Supervisors Tuesday voted to consider leasing two shuttered Van Nuys group homes from the state.

The homes, Pride House and Lion’s Gate, are themselves dreary facilities with tiny rooms and too many beds, said Dan Revetto, an aide to Supervisor Mike Antonovich, who developed the proposal. Revetto said, however, a little paint and some turf planted outside might help ease conditions at MacLaren Children’s Center in El Monte.

Both of the homes under consideration were closed by the state after allegations surfaced that children were poorly supervised and had engaged in a “mini-riot,” illicit sex and drug use.

The two facilities were built as part of an ambitious plan for a “Children’s Campus,” conceived in the mid-1980s by Antonovich and others, and as a way to relieve overcrowding at MacLaren. A task force set up to study the issue at that time recommended against building the facilities, warning that the financial pressures of keeping such a large facility open might lead to more overcrowding.

But Antonovich, in a motion approved by supervisors Tuesday, said MacLaren, with 180 children in rooms designed for 124, is overcrowded and unsafe.

Reopening Pride House and Lion’s Gate, he said, would allow the county to house juvenile delinquents apart from other children.

“The overpopulation and poor configuration of the MacLaren Children’s Center makes it difficult to keep the populations separated, creating safety problems for the children and staff,” Antonovich said.

At MacLaren, Antonovich said, 40% of the children have serious mental health problems, another 40% are “high risk” for delinquent behavior, 10% simply need shelter and another 10% are developmentally delayed.

Revetto said the two buildings, situated at opposite ends of the same property in Van Nuys, could lend themselves to overcrowding if they are used in the same way as they were previously.

“There are a total of 180 beds there, but we’re not sure we want to put that many in there--some of the rooms are a bit small,” Revetto said. “And they have two beds in many of the rooms.”

Further, “there is no grassy area, no running-around room,” he said. “But perhaps there is an area where we could break the asphalt and lay down sod.”