New Pico Youth & Family Center facility opens in Santa Monica

Julian Ayala tells anyone who will listen that the Pico Youth & Family Center pulled him from the grip of substance abuse and street gangs.

“It was the root of my transformation as a human being,” said Ayala, 19.

A year ago, Ayala, then a high school senior, hesitantly stood before the Santa Monica City Council.

“I can’t do this,” he said at one point, stepping down from the microphone. But, after he was questioned by a council member, Ayala settled down. He told the council it should provide more funding for the nonprofit center.

On Saturday, Ayala was on hand with about 200 others to celebrate the opening of the center’s new facility next to Santa Monica High School -- made possible in part by the city funds he had lobbied for, as well as private donations.

“Giving back to the community and using our education to help others is the most important thing we can do on this planet,” Oscar de la Torre, the center’s executive director, told the crowd.

The center, with an annual budget of $446,000, provides gang intervention work and after-school tutoring programs.

Santa Monica Police Chief Timothy J. Jackman credited the center with helping keep youths out of trouble.

“Any time we keep kids out of trouble and give them alternatives, it’s a good thing,” Jackman said as he watched the festivities, which included a performance by a Mexican folkloric group.

One of the center’s most popular, and most novel, intervention strategies is its hip-hop music program. The center has a recording studio, where youths compose their own music. Music created there is featured on two compact discs produced by the center.

“When you think about it, it makes a lot of sense,” said Santa Monica Councilman Bobby Shriver. “It gives the kids what they want.”

For Ayala, the chance to make music was the hook.

Three years ago, his brother-in-law, the only father figure Ayala had, was killed in a double homicide that shocked Santa Monica and cast a spotlight on simmering problems in the city’s long-neglected Pico neighborhood.

At the time, he said, Ayala was running with gangs and abusing drugs and alcohol. He was approached by De la Torre, who took him to the center’s old building on Pico Boulevard.

Ayala, who loved hip-hop music, was instantly attracted to the studio.

“It was a place where I could express myself [and] release my pain without drinking and using drugs,” he said.

He was encouraged to take advantage of the center’s tutors. He graduated with his class last year at Santa Monica High and is looking for a job.

His goal is to save some money so he can enroll in a recording-artist training program and continue with his music. In the meantime, he volunteers doing work around the center and was on hand early Saturday helping set up.

“We can’t forget where we came from,” he said, “and the people who helped us.”

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robert.lopez@latimes.com