Housing Project Child Care Facility to Open

Providing what officials call “the other piece of the puzzle,” a $500,000 grant from the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development will allow a long-unused day care facility at San Fernando Gardens to open.

Last fall, the public housing project used a separate HUD grant to launch a joint job training and child care program.

The Child Care Network Program gives residents child care through a network of small child care businesses located within the project.

The latest grant will help consolidate child care in a facility built two years ago but never used. Its amenities include two restrooms, a kitchen and a playground.

“It will be the perfect match,” said Mario Matute, project director for San Fernando Gardens.

“One of the biggest problems people are facing is child care. We offer job training to residents, but they can’t find child care.”

An exact date has not been set for the opening, but Matute expects it will happen during the next few months.

“The children will feel right at home since they are being cared for in their own community,” Matute said.

Diego Cardoso, chairman of the city Housing Authority’s Board of Commissioners, issued a statement describing the center’s opening as “a long-awaited, much welcomed addition and improvement to our community.”

News of the opening also has traveled fast among project residents, Matute said--an encouraging sign in these days of welfare reform.

“Parents keep asking me, ‘When is it going to be open? I’m going to go to school or go to work,’ ” he said.