Community on the Edge of a Comeback : Garden Grove Now Has Funds, Ideas to Upgrade Its Buena Clinton Slum

One year after Garden Grove announced plans to revitalize Buena Clinton, the neighborhood believed to be Orange County’s worst slum is still plagued by violent crime, a high rate of unemployment and widespread urban blight.

But there are unmistakable signs that change is on the way.

City officials, who received $12.5 million in federal and state funds last year to upgrade the rundown community, now plan to tear down some of Buena Clinton’s most deteriorated buildings and replace them with an industrial park and day care center.

Other Garden Grove leaders are hoping that an anti-slum program developed in Florida can be used to cut the crime rate and reduce overcrowding in a neighborhood where squalid, one-bedroom apartments often are occupied by 10 or more persons.

The flurry of new plans contrasts with what many saw as Garden Grove’s earlier reluctance to face Buena Clinton’s problems. Two years ago, Garden Grove asked Santa Ana to annex the largely Latino slum, saying it could no longer afford to spend money in the area.

Today, Garden Grove officials believe they can upgrade the community, which is less than three miles from Disneyland. Some of them say they already see signs of improvement.

“You can see changes taking place now on the streets,” said Jeanette Justus, director of Housing and Neighborhood Development. “I think we’re beginning to make real progress.”

Trash Out of Sight

Justus noted, for example, that the city eliminated the eyesore of children playing in trash bins on front lawns by requiring that the receptacles be placed behind the apartment buildings.

She said Garden Grove has assigned more police to patrol the neighborhood, and that some Buena Clinton landlords have formed a property owners’ association and pledged funds to repair and maintain their buildings.

Despite the upbeat mood at City Hall, however, few outward signs of positive change are evident in the lives of Buena Clinton’s estimated 6,000 residents, many of whom are undocumented immigrants.

Prostitution and drug traffic continue to plague the community, which has a crime rate five times higher than the rest of Garden Grove. As he walked a beat in the neighborhood, Officer M. A. Walker said police have cut down on burglaries and robberies, but that narcotics activity in Buena Clinton is still “extremely high.”

This year, the city prosecuted six slum landlords who failed to maintain their crumbling, overcrowded buildings. The owners were ordered to pay Garden Grove $8,500 for violations such as cockroach infestation, water-soaked ceilings, uncollected garbage, faulty electrical wiring and backed-up plumbing.

Neighborhood children, more than 700 of whom are younger than 5, frequently go without standard medical care, according to city statistics. On a sunny day recently, 10 youngsters could be seen playing with broken bottles and cans in the courtyard of a boarded-up apartment house. In a nearby complex, small children were swinging on ropes rigged from rickety stairways.

“This place, it is always the same,” said one unemployed resident lounging in front of his Keel Avenue apartment. “Dope, crime, hassles--a very bad place to live.”

Down the street, Tony Pol, a postal worker who said he has delivered mail in Buena Clinton for five years, cast a critical eye on a row of dilapidated apartment buildings.

“I know the city is trying to improve this place, but I think it’s a losing battle,” he said. “Whenever they improve things on one street, the problems spill over onto the next street. The problems never go away.”

Nevertheless, Garden Grove officials believe Buena Clinton will change for the better in the next few years--chiefly through an industrial park that would provide jobs for residents and programs to upgrade neighborhood apartments.

Councilman Milton Krieger, along with his colleagues, has sought more state and federal aid for the neighborhood. He said, “In the last year, we’ve brought this place to the attention of government officials. . . . . We’ve finally put Buena Clinton on the map.”

Grants Broken Down

The new flow of money explains much of the city’s new confidence. According to Justus, the major grants are:

- $1.75 million in California Housing Finance Assn. mortgage bonds, to purchase and rehabilitate 50 rundown apartments on Buena Street. The city would lease the rehabilitated units to a private, nonprofit corporation.

- $4.2 million from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, to buy and demolish deteriorating apartment buildings on Keel Avenue. Justus said the city plans to develop an industrial park there, although no tenant has yet been selected for the site.

- A further $4.1 million from HUD, to rehabilitate apartments on Sunswept and Morningside streets, and to subsidize rents for low-income tenants. City officials have not yet adopted a plan to relocate tenants whose homes are repaired or torn down.

- $100,000 from the state, to help pay for building a day care center. City officials are negotiating to purchase a vacant lot on the neighborhood’s northern boundary that is owned by a Las Vegas casino.

- $2.2 million in additional HUD funds, to subsidize the rental payments of single parents under a program called “Project Self-Sufficiency.”

The city also has budgeted more than $2.5 million in redevelopment funds to purchase land for the proposed industrial park. It has used other revenue to step up building-code enforcement, expand the police force and improve local sewers.

All told, Garden Grove has allocated $15.9 million from local, state and federal revenues to help rejuvenate Buena Clinton.

How did the city win such generous assistance?

Krieger and other officials credit Stephen Bollinger, HUD assistant secretary for community development, now deceased, with helping the city secure funds.

Bollinger, along with state officials and local business leaders, last year attended an all-day conference on Buena Clinton that was sponsored by Garden Grove. During the meeting, city officials said they needed money for building rehabilitation, law enforcement and social programs.

Immediately after the meeting, Bollinger said he was authorizing a $2.1-million HUD grant to repair Buena Clinton apartments, and promised that more assistance would be forthcoming.

In a Washington, D.C., interview several weeks later, Bollinger said he had been struck by Buena Clinton because it has all the characteristics of an urban slum, yet is surrounded by affluent suburbs.

“I think the problems of Buena Clinton are not insurmountable, and I am going to be doing whatever I can at this agency (HUD) to see that the area gets help,” he said.

One month later, Bollinger, 36, died of a heart attack. Still, Garden Grove officials had made important Washington contacts with his help, and were able to mount a successful campaign for additional funds, according to Bill Morgan, the city’s Washington lobbyist.

“When you consider the competition among cities for funds these days, I think Garden Grove has made some very important connections,” he said. “It has gained the attention of federal officials. You can’t underestimate the importance of these ties.”

Florida Plan Eyed

One result of the Washington contact is Garden Grove’s growing interest in a novel “slum-busting” program that apparently worked wonders for a Fort Lauderdale, Fla., housing project, according to HUD officials.

The program, known as Oasis, was brought to the attention of Garden Grove by Alan Greenwald, HUD deputy undersecretary for intergovernmental relations. Greenwald told city officials that a similar program might reduce crime in Buena Clinton, and also might get residents involved in improving their community.

In a telephone interview, Greenwald explained the gist of the program. Community organizers are recruited to form an island--or “oasis”--of stability, by making immediate, visible improvements to one or two buildings. Such improvements range from removing graffiti to repairing apartments and planting trees.

The program then protects these improved properties by having the police crack down on any “undesirables” who might jeopardize them--such as drug addicts, violent criminals and prostitutes, he said. Tenants who disrupt the improvements are evicted.

“The idea of the Oasis program is to take an area like Buena Clinton, or Watts, or any slum, and improve it building by building, one step at a time,” Greenwald said.

“As residents see that the improvements in their living environment are maintained, they are encouraged to help keep their neighborhood attractive.”

Police Connection

Greenwald said the program is unique because it ties together housing and police services. Most important, he said, Oasis “does not call for a great deal of new money to be spent. . . . . It utilizes grass-roots energies with existing programs.”

Justus, Krieger and Garden Grove’s police chief, Frank Kessler, last month visited the Fort Lauderdale slum where the Oasis program began. All came back saying they were impressed with Bill Lindsey, the former VISTA worker who is executive director of that city’s housing authority, who devised the program.

“There’s no question that he (Lindsey) accomplished a great deal, to stabilize crime in that community,” said Kessler, echoing a view expressed by Greenwald and several other HUD officials.

“It may well be that we could test out the Oasis program in Buena Clinton. It might have the same results there as it did in Florida,” he added.

Krieger has recommended that the city hire Lindsey to visit Buena Clinton for several days and start a local version of Oasis. The City Council is expected to address the issue in several weeks.

Meanwhile, HUD officials have asked Garden Grove to apply for consideration as a test case for the program on the West Coast.

Looking back on the last year, Krieger said the city has reason to be encouraged.

“Taken together--the Oasis program and the money we have received for Buena Clinton--I think it shows that we are on the right track,” he said.

“The problems are still there. But we have moved forward.”