Housing Complex to Share in Anti-Drug Funds
San Fernando Gardens is among nine city Housing Authority facilities that will share equally in a $2.1-million federal grant for drug elimination efforts.
Awarded by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, the grant will help bring law enforcement and social services programs to each housing project.
Services offered through the city’s Drug Elimination Program include community-based policing by Housing Authority resource officers, referral to drug-rehabilitation programs, job training, gang-intervention programs, youth activities, and HIV and teen-pregnancy prevention programs.
Pete Castro, who sought help through the Drug Elimination Program in 1991 when he was 33, is now working as an Outreach Service liaison at San Fernando Gardens, a 440-unit apartment complex on Lehigh Avenue.
While the program is primarily a service for residents of the housing developments, Castro said he doesn’t turn anyone away.
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