PACOIMA : Dedication of Gardens’ Center as Place of Hope

Amid the jumble of 40-year-old, government-built, cinder-block homes, the pristine white-and-green building is an almost literal lighthouse.

The hope is that those who live in the San Fernando Gardens housing complex will be drawn to the Multipurpose Community Center and leave speaking English or with their high-school equivalency diplomas or with well-paying jobs.

“This is called a multipurpose center but it really has only one purpose,” said U.S. Rep. Howard Berman (D-Panorama City). “It is the mechanism by which the people who live here can get empowered.”

Berman was one of many officials and more than 100 residents of the Pacoima housing complex on hand Friday for the dedication of the sparkling new facility, touted as a product of intergovernmental cooperation and a place of hope in an impoverished, sometimes violent neighborhood.

Funded by monies from federal and local agencies totaling $876,000, the V-shaped, 5,330-square-foot building has been in the planning stages since the late 1980s. The finished product features a 100-person meeting room, a day-care center complete with Lego building blocks, a kitchen and office and teaching space.

Residents of the Lehigh Avenue complex will have access to services ranging from parenting and typing classes to job placement.

After several delays in construction, some resident leaders at San Fernando Gardens--home to nearly 2,000 people in 466 units--feared at times the project would never come to fruition. But everyone seemed thrilled at the outcome.

And speaker after speaker offered high hopes--translated into Spanish for the predominantly Latino residents--that the center would offer a step up for a neighborhood struggling with gangs, drugs, poverty and, for many, a new country.

“It’s truly a dream come true,” said Ozie B. Gonzaque, chairperson of the board of commissioners of the Housing Authority of the city of Los Angeles, which manages the complex.

The San Fernando Gardens center is the first of its kind, but Gonzaque said, “It’s the beginning. We hope to have them all over the city.”