County Eyes Glendale for Site of New Welfare Office

After proposing to set up a district welfare office in Burbank, drawing criticism from the city’s leaders, Los Angeles County officials appeared to back away from that idea Thursday, saying they would search for a site in Glendale, which already has such an office.

The decision to focus on Glendale “was decided on the basis of a number of issues, primarily parking and location,” said Ollie Blanning, an aide to County Supervisor Mike Antonovich. “A central location is important so people can get there easily, and there was a lack of parking in Burbank.”

The move by county welfare officials comes after Burbank officials complained to Antonovich that a regional welfare office in their city would harm neighborhoods in Burbank, which supplies relatively few welfare cases.

Burbank officials praised Antonovich’s efforts Thursday and said they would be open to a plan to supply one of the locations for the county’s welfare-to-work program known as Greater Avenues for Independence, or GAIN.

“We’re pleased that the supervisor has taken our concerns seriously and is working in the best interests of all involved,” said Assistant City Manager Steve Helvey. “We’re confident the [welfare] clients will be well served in Glendale.”

A GAIN office would provide work training, without the adverse impacts of a regional welfare office, which would serve 1,400 recipients each day, Helvey said.

The Glendale district office, which has been at 225 E. Broadway for 21 years, provides such services as general relief, food stamps, Medi-Cal, in-home support and Calworks. Of the 36,000 aid recipients who use the Glendale-Burbank regional office, about 17,365 are residents of Glendale, 13,570 come from the city of Los Angeles and about 4,000 live in Burbank.

In recent months, however, county social services officials had begun eyeing property on the east side of Burbank on Winona Avenue near Hollywood Way to accommodate those cases and the 150,000 local families expected to join the state’s mandated welfare-to-work program by year’s end.

Glendale officials said they have no objections to housing the regional welfare office. But they said it should be in an area that is not prime real estate and has no parking problems.