[Marilyn] Hollygrove Closes after 125 years

[Danamo]

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/state/la-me-hollygrove20dec20,1,5237442.story?coll=la-news-state&ctrack=1&cset=true

Marilyn Monroe spent some of her most important Hollywood nights in its safe embrace. So did about 20,000 others.

Now, though, the last young resident has packed his bags and moved. Los Angeles' original orphanage is shutting its cottage doors after 125 years of housing children whose families have all but given up on them.

Without fanfare, the venerable privately run Hollygrove children's residential treatment centerhasclosed. It is a victim of a changing philosophy about the treatment for youngsters who are abused, addicted or abandoned.

Orphanages have fallen out of fashion in Los Angeles and across the United States as social services organizations work to move kids from group facilities to foster homes or the homes of members of their extended families or family friends.

As recently as the mid-1990s, more than 3,500 children lived in group facilities in Los Angeles County. About 340 remain. That number is steadily declining as children are placed with relatives or friends. At least 70 group homes across the county have closed in the last decade.

"We don't think children ages 6 to 12 should be under institutional care," said Lisa Parrish, deputy director of the Los Angeles County Department of Children and Family Services.

But some supporters of Hollygrove contend that the quiet closure marks an inglorious end to a community service that began when two women commandeered a horse and buggy to rescue abandoned waifs from the dusty streets of 19th-century Los Angeles.