Youth shelter to reopen

Community Services Programs of Laguna Beach agrees to take over the shuttered Central Park facility.After months of sitting abandoned, the Youth Shelter in Huntington Beach Central Park has been taken over by a new operator.

On Dec. 19, the Huntington Beach City Council voted to hand the reins to Community Services Programs of Laguna Beach after a failed attempt by the Volunteers of America to run the facility. Community Services already runs two youth programs in Huntington Beach to help juvenile offenders and at-risk youth.

In February, the City Council voted to end the Volunteers eight-year contract with the organization after the facility stopped accepting children. Representatives with the organization said Volunteers had failed to renew a large federal grant it had been using to operate the center. Instead of taking in youths, the Volunteers were only staffing a social worker on the site and referring children to other agencies.

When the Volunteers left, they took everything with them, causing a rift in the city. Many of the items in the center were donated by local residents, and several people were angry that the Volunteers took furniture and recreation equipment when they moved out.

Today, the shelter sits empty, but Community Service Projects plans to refurnish the shelter and begin accepting items by spring, said Margot Carlson, executive director.

“We’re targeting April 1 as our start-up date,” she said. “The shelter is not yet furnished, and our biggest challenge will be outfitting the place.”

The shelter will be modeled after a similar facility in Laguna Beach; all admissions will be voluntary, and children will receive therapy and case management. There will also be workshops and counseling to help clients work through personal problems.

“It’s really about behavioral change, intense counseling and putting the family system back into play,” Carlson said in a previous interview. “Do we make perfect families? No. Do we show, teach and demonstrate how families can live together? Yes. We are pretty successful at that.”

Carslon said she plans to meet with the board of directors from the original facility, the Friends of the Youth Shelter, and re-establish an advisory role for the group. The board split with the shelter after disagreements with Volunteers of America.

Some of the board members helped to found the shelter in 1989, securing a contract to operate the facility at the Brooks House near the Huntington Beach Central Library. As the story goes, school nurse Carol Kanode had encountered a homeless 14-year-old girl living on the streets of Huntington Beach who was in dire need of a place to stay.

The young girl had been abandoned by her mother and turned to a life of prostitution and drug dealing to survive. Kanode was moved by the girl’s story and organized with other community leaders and educators to create a safe place for teenagers to go.

“There was a lot of initiative and emotion that went into developing this shelter, and it’s nice to see it opened again and living up to the original mission,” shelter fundraiser Mary Lou Shattuck said. “Several operators have come and gone, but the need to serve the county’s children is always there.”20060119iqqyvoknDOUGLAS ZIMMERMAN / INDEPENDENT(LA)The Huntington Beach Youth Shelter will by managed by Community Services Programs of Laguna Beach.