Hope Is Restored at Shelter for Youth

Christine remembers the nights she sold her body on the streets for food and a place to sleep, but she doesn’t dwell on those memories anymore.

Instead, the 16-year-old with long, dark hair and a broad smile looks forward to going to college and becoming a doctor--dreams she’s nurtured as a resident of Children of the Night, a Van Nuys shelter for sexually abused children and former child prostitutes.

Since coming to the shelter, Christine has earned her high school equivalency diploma and plans to enter community college in January.

“I didn’t want to come to a shelter. How could they help me?” Christine said, sitting in the dining room at Children of the Night. “But it worked out for the best. This place works, if you want to work it.”

The Holiday Campaign of the Los Angeles Times Family Fund was launched to help programs such as Children of the Night. The Holiday Campaign provides aid for agencies serving mentally and physically disabled children as well as violence and drug abuse prevention programs for youth in the five-county Southern California region.

Since its founding in 1979, Children of the Night has rescued more than 10,000 boys and girls from prostitution nationwide, agency officials said. More than 80% of the children have stayed off the streets and no longer depend on criminal activity to survive.

At the 24-bed shelter in Van Nuys, children can live for up to a year in dormitory-style rooms, eat in a common dining room and attend on-site classes leading to a high school diploma or its equivalent.

The program provides medical and dental care and, if needed, drug and alcohol treatment, psychological counseling and self-help workshops.

“We only bring kids here who want to be here and want to make something out of their lives,” said Executive Director Lois Lee, a firm believer in tough love.

Even so, Lee said, many of the residents call her Mom and exchange hugs with the shelter’s 150 volunteers. “It’s a warm, gentle and loving place where we care deeply about our kids.”

Children of the Night also operates a nationwide 24-hour hotline that receives more than 20,000 calls a year from children living on the streets who are looking for a safe place. Operators are trained to keep the caller on the line while they send a taxi to the child’s location for transportation to a local shelter.

The agency’s Western Region Street Program sends volunteers onto the streets to give youths emergency telephone numbers and condoms to combat the spread of sexually transmitted diseases.

For Christine, her yearlong stay at the shelter has changed her life. “I am very thankful to them for getting my mind set. Without them, I’d probably still be on the streets,” Christine said. “I am actually going to miss this place.”

The Holiday Campaign was established last year after the Los Angeles Times merged with Tribune Co. It is a part of the Los Angeles Times Family Fund, which includes The Times’ long-running Summer Camp Program.

The McCormick Tribune Foundation will match the first $500,000 in donations at 50 cents on the dollar, and the Los Angeles Times will absorb all administrative costs.

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THE TIMES HOLIDAY CAMPAIGN

Tax deductible donations: Checks or money orders should be sent to: LA Times Holiday Campaign, File #56491, Los Angeles, CA 90074-6491. Please do not send cash. Credit card donations can be made on the Web site: https://www.latimes.com/holiday

campaign. Contributions of $25 or more will be acknowledged in the Los Angeles Times unless a donor requests otherwise. For information about the Holiday Campaign call (800) LA TIMES, Ext. 75480.