Study: Less crime, more graduates in Oak View neighborhood

The Oak View neighborhood has seen less crime, more high school graduates and fewer obese children over the last decade, according to a recent study.

The nonprofit group Oak View Renewal Partnership — which since 2005 has worked to understand the gaps between the predominantly Hispanic, low-income neighborhood and other areas of Huntington Beach — studied the U.S. census and collaborated with the Huntington Beach Police Department, Cal State Fullerton Center for Demographic Research and the USC Sol Price Center for Social Innovation over the last six months to compile its 2016 Community Wellness Index report, said Yesenia Velez Ochoa, executive director of the nonprofit.

“We wanted to show people that over the course of the last 10 years, there have been improvements in these different areas,” Ochoa said of the 1-square-mile neighborhood where its residents typically earn more than 50% less in income than other residents in the city. “There are things there that we want to celebrate and highlight.”

According to the study, between 2006 and 2015, violent crime dropped 41%, property crime decreased by 49%, drug crimes were down 13% and other offenses saw a 32.5% reduction.

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Lt. Kent Ferrin, who monitors Oak View for the Huntington Beach Police Department, said police have been working to improve relationships with the residents of the neighborhood in hopes of building trust.

“We always had a neighborhood enhancement team, and around 2014 it had been disbanded for economic reasons,” he said. “We were looking at putting it back together, and we put it back together differently.... At that time we didn’t know what our impact would be coming into the community. We told the officers to build relationships and get to know the community. We basically wanted to do community policing squared. We wanted to take it to another level.”

Ferrin said the department set up town hall meetings, equine-assisted therapy sessions for the children, beach surf days, fishing classes and academies in English and Spanish. It also reinstituted a neighborhood watch program and school resource officer.

He said gang activity in the area, home to two small gangs, has gone down since the department decided to go after violent, identified members.

“They were very effective at doing that,” Ferrin said of the agency’s gang unit. “They went in and cut out that cancer.”

Lorena Loya, a 12-year resident of Oak View, said she was aware of shootings and other violence in the past but has noticed fewer incidents in recent years.

She said she believes that gang members still operate on some streets in the neighborhood but aren’t a major problem.

However, Lupe Hernandez, 15, said she hasn’t noticed crime getting much better and doesn’t see a stronger police presence in the area.

“They just seem to pass by,” said the Oak View resident and sophomore at Ocean View High School. “They roam around but they don’t really stop to talk to anybody. There need to be more police here every night because everything happens mostly at night and they’re not around.”

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Indeed, gang activity hasn’t been eradicated.

On Dec. 13, 2015, four people were injured in an apparent gang-related shooting in the 17000 block of Keelson Lane, in the Oak View neighborhood. Five Huntington Beach men were arrested weeks later on suspicion of attempted murder.

The lack of affordable housing has also plagued the area. Nearly 40% of Oak View residents live in households of seven or more people, according to Ferrin.

According to the study, in 2014, 38.4% of the area’s families lived with an occupancy rate greater than one person per room. This compares with 29.7% in 2009.

In education, the Oak View Renewal Partnership study found that in 2015, 78 of Ocean View High School’s 318 graduates came from the Oak View community, compared with 51 of 333 graduates of the school in 2008.

The survey also found that Oak View Elementary School’s Academic Index increased to 874 in 2014 from 765 in 2007.

Ochoa said she believes students are getting better grades because of greater parental involvement in their children’s academic careers.

“As parents become more empowered by their own voice and choices and how these kids access these programs and resources, I think the kids are kind of rising to this newer expectation that college is an option,” she said. “I’m hearing from parents who have been in the community for decades that they’re now seeing flights of kids going into college, where it used to just be a sprinkle here and there.”

Veronica Cardoso, an Oak View resident since 1993 who works at the elementary school, said she has noticed more parents attending school assemblies.

“The parents being involved and more programs for the kids prevent them from becoming gangsters,” she said.

In health, the nonprofit found that 10% of Oak View preschool children were obese in 2015, compared with 15% in 2013.

Ochoa said she was pleased with the findings.

“I think this will resonate with the residents because they’ve experienced the difference,” she said. “We’re trying to build a model for other communities to follow.”

The Oak View Renewal Partnership was expected to present its findings at the Hoag Hospital Conference Center, 3900 Pacific Coast Hwy. in Newport Beach, from 8 to 9:30 a.m. Thursday.

brittany.woolsey@latimes.com

Twitter: @BrittanyWoolsey