Berta is a longtime resident of Sunland and a 45-year-old mother of two. She recently lost her job. Like many other San Fernando Valley residents, she had been living paycheck to paycheck and losing her job sent her into a depression. She was threatened with eviction and became consumed with worry about her children. Her sister persuaded her to go to a local Wellness Center where they held her for 24 hours to do a physical and psychological evaluation. The medical staff recommended medication and time in its Residential Care Center so she could stabilize on her medications and get back on her feet. Three weeks later, she was well enough to move into transitional housing where she could stay until she found a new job and a new apartment.
Berta is just one patient among the many San Fernando Valley residents who occasionally encounter daunting and destabilizing setbacks that can lead to medical and psychological problems. Without treatment and support, their conditions worsen and they can become homeless. The proposed “restorative care village” at Olive View – UCLA Medical Center will provide the services that Berta and other SFV residents need to pull their lives back from a difficult time. It will also provide critical ongoing care and treatment for those in our community who are in need of more than just a short stay in an emergency room. We see this as a solution to a longstanding problem. People need more than the revolving door of the emergency room – they need sustainable treatment and care that last.
Late last month, we met with nearly 100 residents and leaders in Sylmar to discuss this new “restorative care village” at the Olive View Medical Center. As many local residents already know, Olive View has been serving the San Fernando Valley community for nearly 100 years, providing inpatient, ambulatory, emergency and urgent care services for more than 300,000 patients each year.
The new Restorative Care program will expand our services, providing physical and mental health care, as well as social services for local patients. Similar facilities are being developed at LA County+USC, Rancho Los Amigos and Martin Luther King Jr. medical center campuses.
The Olive View program will be housed in eight buildings and provide beds for 80 patients in the Residential Treatment Program and 48 patients in the Recuperative Care Center. Upon entry to our programs, discharge planners and case managers will work with patients and their families to make sure that patients have a stable home to go to and ongoing services so their health improves.
We are very excited to be able to bring this new standard of care to the community and look forward to Opening Day in 2021! We are also excited that the project will include significant investments to our local equestrian trails and walking paths. Construction for the entire Restorative Care village is expected to last about a year and a half, and we don’t anticipate any drastic traffic changes during construction. Please check our website [http://dhs.lacounty.gov/wps/portal/dhs/oliveview/aboutus/masterplan] for updates about the project between now and then.