Comeback for Crenshaw

The City of Los Angeles’ Crenshaw Apartment Improvement Program, funded primarily with federal dollars, is rehabilitating 150 to 200 units a year in a crowded area east of La Brea Avenue. It’s a tough job, but decent apartments renting for under $500 are sorely needed in Los Angeles.

The rehabilitation program has helped property owners fix up 641 apartments, and more work is in progress. A partnership among responsible tenants, landlords, merchants, lenders and government representatives, including the police, has helped keep them clean and reduce drug-dealing.

Drug sales and use had been rampant for a decade. The combination of crime and neglect by owners and tenants had been driving out law-abiding families from the area once known as The Jungle for its luxuriant tropical landscaping.

That began to change when City Council President Pat Russell, the driving force behind the rehabilitation program, went after the three worst apartment buildings, run down and crawling with drug dealers. The renovation cost $1.26 million. The owner put up narly $300,000, and low-interest government loans covered the rest of the cost of security carport gates topped with barbed wire, security lights, a new roof, stoves, windows, carpeting, plumbing, painting and plastering. The work was completed in 1983.

Today the buildings look well groomed, except for one small blemish of gang graffiti. Most of the 120 apartments are occupied, many through rent subsidies and some at market rates. Cooperative tenants continue to support police efforts to suppress drug activity.

The successes represent an investment of $10 million in city, federal and private dollars over three years. But thousands more apartments need work at a time when federal housing funds may well be cut by as much as 30%. Fortunately, city officials are looking at other revenue sources and a new program so that federal policy does not affect the Crenshaw project so heavily.

Private owners and lenders must take up the slack. The apartments are less than a mile from the Crenshaw Shopping Center, which is scheduled at long last to undergo a $50-million facelift and expansion starting in February. The new stores and improved housing could add up to a community renaissance. The Crenshaw improvement program must be seen through to the end.