When the Franklin Field Youth Center closes this Sunday, Sheila Boyce's two children will have to find a new place to hang out after school.

For the past three years, Boyce's children, Damien, 13, and Sherrelle, 11, have spent weekday afternoons at the nearby Dorchester center, where they get homework help, take computer classes and attend scout meetings. After Sunday, however, funding for the center, and 18 other centers in Boston, will disappear, and hundreds of children will be forced to find somewhere else to stay.

"My daughter's really upset," said Boyce, 36. "There's dance class over there, and other things for her free time. She won't have those. She won't have anything to do."

The Boston Housing Authority was forced to eliminate its youth programs, scattered throughout the city in low-income areas, after President Bush recently sliced federal funding for public housing outreach. Without BHA youth programming, Boyce and other parents say they now must enroll their children in other programs, which may be too far away for kids to access alone.

"I'm in a bind right now," Boyce said. "There's no way I can actually drop them off and pick them up. I'd have to have somebody to transport them. I don't have that."

The city has made efforts to limit difficulties with the transition. This weekend, Mayor Thomas Menino allocated $400,000 to hiring 15 new workers at other city youth programs. The BHA offered $200,000 for the same purpose and committed to equaling that contribution next year as well.

"We are going to be able to continue to serve the people of youth public housing as they deserve to be served," said BHA Deputy Administrator Bill McGonagle.

McGonagle fielded questions and criticisms from members of the community at a City Council hearing last night at Aggassiz Elementary School in Jamaica Plain. More than 50 children from the Franklin Field Youth Center crowded into the school's auditorium, some armed with colored posterboard over which such pleas were scrawled as "Save the teen center please" and "Why hurt us kids? Don't cut funding."Rep. Elizabeth Malia (D-Suffolk), who contested the program cut, said at bare minimum, interim relief is needed for displaced children. Though the centers will close this week, the new workers are expected to be hired and trained as late as June 1.

"We still have nothing in writing that will tell us what happens to our children after this Sunday, which just happens to be Easter Sunday," Malia said. "Our children are basically being pushed out in the cold."

Youth Centers not funded by the BHA are already feeling the burden of displaced youths. Lorna Bognanno, coordinator of Jamaica Plain Community Centers, said she does not think her programs have the manpower to accommodate the new influx of children.

"We have our staff stretched to the limit," Bognanno said.

While organizations such as local YMCAs and Boys & Girls Clubs are being asked to care for extra youths, space is severely limited, according to Gerald Casey, former program manager for the BHA Youth Program.

"They don't have the room," Casey said. "They don't have the staff to take care of those additional kids, and no amount of money is going help them take on additional kids."

McGonagle said the city is making progress in relocating youths to those other programs, although he said the transition is not complete. Malia, however, said more will have to be done before the June 1 hirings.

"The mayor has stepped forward, and I thank him very much for this," Malia said. "The problem is we still have no details."

The federal Public Housing Drug Elimination program, which funded the BHA centers, contributed about $3.1 million per year to the BHA, and some lag money still exists, McGonagle said. McGonagle said he could not commit to funding the defunct centers during the interim period.

McGonagle said the city is handling the situation to the best of its ability, noting the federal government has of late neglected public housing. He said the BHA has run a deficit for each of the past three years.

"This federal cut was extremely unfortunate and, I believe, very shortsighted," McGonagle said.

"We're concerned about the level of cuts we've been getting for public housing; it's been going down and down and down," said BHA spokeswoman Lydia Agro. "These cuts are of great concern to people, and in this particular instance, it's an example of where cities have had to come up to the plate and make up for funding and service that they were getting from the federal government but they're not receiving anymore."

Agro acknowledged the program cut will be hard on the children currently using the BHA youth centers.

"It's a difficult transition for kids," she said. "They have been used to having youth centers on site and youth workers there.

"Once they make the transition, it will be OK. But I do think it's a difficult transition for kids."