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# OPCC is breaking new ground
- URL: https://www.smdp.com/opcc-is-breaking-new-ground/
- Published: 2005-05-26T15:00:00.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-23T07:11:59.000Z
- Author: Ryan Hyatt
- Tags: Community, Mid-City, #archive-import, Homeless, Homelessness

MID-CITY — A new homeless shelter that started on rocky terrain has broken ground with the hopes of stabilizing thousands of people’s lives.

Ocean Park Community Center held a groundbreaking ceremony and reception on Wednesday to celebrate its newest facility, scheduled to open in 2006 at 1751 Cloverfield Blvd., a site which has in the past stirred controversy for area residents and business owners alike who feel their neighborhood has hosted its fair share of city social service projects.

About 100 people — including city officials, dignitaries and OPCC supporters — gathered in the parking lot north of the building’s shell to hear about the social service provider’s past successes and its hopes for the future at its new location.

Among the speakers were Santa Monica Mayor Pam O’Connor, Los Angeles County Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky and René Buchanon, a former homeless woman who relied upon OPCC to get off of the streets and forge a self-sufficient life. walked into OPCC’s access center on Colorado Avenue and sought help in one of its programs geared specifically for mentally ill women, she was living in her own apartment. This past March, she was hired to work at OPCC, now helping other women get out of messes similar to the one she found herself in just four years prior.

According to Buchanon, OPCC helped empower her by giving her choices and making her feel valued as a person with talents. As a result, she gained enough self-esteem to break the cycle of depression and the resulting homelessness she’d endured off and on since she was 16 years old.

“I am not who I was when I walked into the access center... I am the person I always wanted to be. I am happy. I am content. I am fulfilled,” she told the group. “If anyone had asked me if I had any talents, I would have said ‘no.’ But I was given an empowering opportunity to help myself.”

Yaroslavsky said OPCC should be commended for its work in assisting Santa Monica’s unhoused citizens and he hopes that LA County will look to OPCC’s pro-gramming as an example of how to address the growing epidemic of homelessness permeating the region.

“Clearly, you know what you are doing,” he said of OPCC, adding that the organization is a leader in the social service sector. “You do things that nobody else does, and nobody does as well.”

![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/55/9f/559f9abc-8372-4a2e-8c2d-27386da4e363/content/images/2026/10/052605-01_01.jpg)

Mayor Pam O’Connor speaks Wednesday about the future of Ocean Park Community Center at its new facility under construction on Cloverfield Boulevard. (Photo: Carolyn Sackariason/Daily Press)

*Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on May 26, 2005.* [Read the original PDF.](https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/smdp%5Fbackissues/052605.pdf?ref=smdp.com)