Amid the activities and resources available during a recent Family Appreciation Night held on its campus, Vaughn Next Century Learning Center in Pacoima held a groundbreaking ceremony for an upcoming community wellness center and an apartment building.
Fidel Ramirez, CEO of the K-12 school, said the project was approved by the Board of Directors more than two years ago, but getting approval from the California Department of General Services was delayed due to last year’s wildfires. Now that they’ve received it, Ramirez estimates the project will take around 15 months to complete.
When it’s finished, the school will have a wellness center for mental health services and a housing unit with 21 apartments, both of which will be located next to the existing Family & Community Center. The wellness center will be open not only to students and family members, but to the broader community as well.
Vaughn has seen the need for more mental health services increase over the last few years. Ramirez said that prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, the school had eight counselors and social workers. Today, they have 20, but he said that still isn’t enough to provide the services needed for families in the community. The school has partnerships with outside agencies, but the campus currently doesn’t have the space for them to conduct their services.
“Now that we [will] have a center, the idea is that we would have additional offices and therapy rooms to be able to provide that support, not exclusively by our own clinicians, but inclusive of our partners that we currently have,” Ramirez said. “Our goal is to essentially be able to provide additional mental health support to the [broader] community.”
For the apartments, the priority will go toward teachers whose positions are considered “hard to fill,” meaning they are critically understaffed. These include special education, math and ESL (English as a Second Language). Once those positions are filled, the remaining units will open up to the broader community.
“We deserve workforce housing for our families in our communities, so we’re excited to be able to bring this new kind of venture to Pacoima,” Ramirez said. “We’re very proud to be able to provide top-quality housing for families in need.”
