Free Clinic Finds Hollywood Youth Center Site : Health: With $1.3 million pledged from state and city agencies, the clinic is now turning to private sources for the remainder of the purchase price.

The Los Angeles Free Clinic has found a site for its Hollywood Youth Center and is now trying to raise private funds to buy the building so it can better address the social and medical needs of runaway and homeless youths.

State and city agencies have already committed $1.3 million to the Free Clinic for the center. The purchase and renovation of the building at 6043 Hollywood Blvd., near Gower Street, are expected to cost $1.9 million, said Andi Sobbe, the clinic’s development director.

Beginning this week, the clinic is sending formal proposals to foundations and local corporations, outlining its goal of a comprehensive health care and social services network in the heart of Hollywood, which attracts vast numbers of runaway and homeless youths, Sobbe said.

“We are hoping the local Hollywood community will come together to support us,” Sobbe said. “This building is an opportunity to really move into Hollywood and be able to serve the kids. They have so many needs that often one single agency can’t answer all of them.”

The Hollywood property is in escrow, and Sobbe said few details are available about the building itself. But funding is expected in time to allow the site to be renovated and opened by January, 1991, she said.

The project has received $225,000 from the city’s Community Development Department, $750,000 from the city’s Community Redevelopment Agency and $325,000 from the state Department of Health Services, Sobbe said.

The center would house the Free Clinic’s High Risk Youth Program, which has been run since 1982 through the clinic’s headquarters at 8405 Beverly Blvd. in Los Angeles in conjunction with Childrens Hospital of Los Angeles.

As in the existing program, staff and volunteers would see street youths from 12 to 24 years of age, treating medical needs while trying to gain the youths’ confidence to address overall mental health and lifestyle needs.

A multidisciplinary team of physicians, social workers, AIDS and drug abuse specialists, and peer counselors already review each person’s case and develop a plan to help coordinate their care.

The Free Clinic relies on 500 doctors, dentists, nurses, counselors, lawyers and others to help anyone who comes through its doors.

The Free Clinic will continue to treat high-risk youths at its headquarters, but concern over the large numbers of low-income youths in Hollywood who were not seeking treatment prompted the move, according to Sobbe and Gary Yates, director of the High Risk Youth Program.

The youths fear and distrust other hospitals, because employees there might contact authorities, clinic officials say. And many youths do not receive needed care because they have no way of getting to the Free Clinic and do not want to spend an hour each way riding buses, said Yates, who is also an associate director at Childrens Hospital.

“This would be right in the heart of Hollywood, where the drop-in centers and major shelters where the kids stay are,” Yates said. “With that kind of location, we expect to see more of the kids drop in and get medical attention, and less cancellation of appointments.”

Only after medical care is administered can the long process of getting the youths off the streets begin, Sobbe said.

“Success is measured in very small steps with these kids,” she said. “Just keeping one of them on birth control for six months is considered a real success.”