SAN DIEGO COUNTY PERSPECTIVE : Breaking a Cycle of Abuse

Some charities in San Diego County are hurting for donations. This holiday season, more people needed help and fewer contributed. That is particularly ominous since the Thanksgiving-Christmas period can account for up to half of the money a nonprofit organization raises in a year.

But the seasonal giving did have one very bright light: Jessie Polinsky’s gift of $5 million to the Child Abuse Prevention Foundation to help build a center for abused children. The state-of-the-art center would replace the inadequate and crowded Hillcrest Receiving Home, which originally was built to accommodate 16 to 20 children, but now routinely houses 60 to 70.

The foundation projects that $15 million is needed for a 130-bed center and for an endowment to augment government operating funds. With the Polinsky gift, $7 million has been raised.

The public-private partnership, with the county contributing 10 acres on Kearny Mesa, is patterned after a similar successful venture in Orange County that produced Orangewood, a model children’s center where counseling, shelter, legal help and medical care are provided under one roof.

Also trying to emulate Orangewood is Casa de Amparo in North County. The city of San Marcos has provided the land for $1 a year. And the Casa is trying to raise $8.5 million to build a 100-bed center to replace a dilapidated 23-bed home.

We are hesitant to promote one worthy cause over others, even one as critically important as abused children. We hope that donors will not see the decision as either child abuse or the Salvation Army or St. Vincent de Paul or another nonprofit. But rather, in addition to them.

These public-private partnerships are too good to pass up, because they save taxes and because helping to break the generational cycle of abuse will pay huge societal dividends in the future.

San Diego already has a great head start, thanks to Jessie Polinsky and public lands. Now it’s time for the people of San Diego to ante up.