Group struggles to keep day care open

The troubles continued this month for the embattled Nevada Association of Latin Americans, a 40-year-old social services organization that provides child care for low-income families and which in January received an eviction notice from its landlord.

The nonprofit's executive director resigned, leaving Peggy Maze Johnson the chair of its board of trustees, struggling to keep the day care's doors open and address the group 's $180,000 in debt.

"I'm in there running the day care," Johnson said Wednesday. "The program is too important to those children and those families."

Johnson also is continuing the group's fight to stay in the building it has leased for $1 a year for more than three decades at 323 N. Maryland Parkway, near Stewart Avenue. NALA's landlord, the Southern Nevada Regional Housing Authority, contends the organization hasn't worked hard enough to recruit clients from among the poor who live in housing authority properties and hasn't adequately maintained the building.

The eviction was put on hold after the group filed a complaint in District Court Feb. 8. NALA officials claim the group wasn't given written notice of the problems and enough opportunity to address them. The housing authority terminated the lease agreement -- which was to run through June 2011 -- without cause, according to the complaint. This has resulted in "lost donations and grants, damage to NALA's good will, public relations and advertising costs," it said.

The housing authority has yet to answer the complaint. But Carl Rowe, the agency's interim director, said it won't make much difference.

"It's too late," he said. "The only thing I'm willing to negotiate is the length of time they need to move."

NALA was given plenty of notice and opportunities to address problems that included failing to do outreach at housing authority properties, consistently file monthly reports and repair a long-broken air conditioner, Rowe said.

Families whose children attend the preschool won't be affected by NALA's eviction because the housing authority will take over operation of the school until it finds a new service provider, Rowe said.

NALA's preschool has 110 children registered, but attendance varies each day, Johnson said. Six of those children live in housing authority properties, she said.

Families pay between $65 and $95 per week for child care, depending on their income.

NALA was incorporated in 1969 to provide social services to Hispanics in the Las Vegas Valley. The organization has struggled in recent years because of a scarcity of grant funds and decreased donations.

The group's former executive director, Teri De La Torre, could not be reached for comment Wednesday.

She left without much explanation, Johnson said. "I think a lot of it was burnout."

Johnson is trying to raise money to help pay down NALA's debt and keep the organization going.

"We should have some sense of continuity for these parents," she said.