Project Taking Drug Monkey off the Back of the ‘Jungle’

The surly young men with the flashy gold chains and tough-guy attitudes still rule the streets of Chevy Chase, a neighborhood of poor Latino families just a stone’s throw from that shining symbol of America, Disneyland.

A small enclave of dilapidated rental units and graffiti known as “the jungle,” Chevy Chase is the kind of place where children grow up in a fast lane of drugs and crime. Sometimes they trip along the way, ending up in the County Jail or state prison, or dead.

At night, the young men who wear their machismo like a badge of honor hang around on the sidewalks, beckoning to strangers’ cars in the unmistakable body language of the drug dealer.

“It’s like a drive-in drugstore over there,” said Sgt. Harold Mittmann, head of a special Anaheim police strike team that has been trying to get the dope pushers off the streets. “You want cocaine or marijuana, you just drive through and they deliver it to your car door.”

Or so it has been. Albeit slowly, things now may be changing for the better.

Thanks to a city-sponsored program, Chevy Chase is undergoing a revival of sorts. Old, neglected homes are being renovated and brought up to city building codes, streets are being cleaned and broken windows and doors repaired.

Over the past year, dozens of families have been moved out of their substandard housing units in Chevy Chase and relocated to other affordable housing areas. Others are on the waiting list as the Karcher Barry Co. continues to buy parcels of land and sets about renovating almost 400 existing structures.

The project, funded by a $26-million bond issue, calls for the first 82 units to be completed by the end of August and the entire project by the end of next year.

“What we’re trying to create is a fine middle-class neighborhood in north Anaheim and provide safe and decent housing,” said Terrance Barry, one of the general contractors. “We have had an excellent response. It has been an outstanding example of the partnership between the public and private sector in renovating a blighted neighborhood.”

Sheri Erlewine, Anaheim city spokeswoman, said the city was pleased with the work that Karcher Barry has done in the project area.

“I think there has been a big change over there,” Erlewine said. “We basically had some (landlords) who owned a lot of property and wouldn’t keep it up. Our code enforcement people were in there almost full time citing the slumlords.

“Things are getting painted, taken down, and people who are moved are finding other places to live. We bring in a contracting firm that literally goes out and finds low-income apartments and housing and matches them up with people we’re trying to relocate. We help them get new services turned on and assist them however we can.”

“The area has really changed quite a bit,” said Mittmann, who made headlines last December when his unit conducted regular sweeps in the area, having undercover policemen pose as drug dealers to sell small amounts of marijuana and cocaine to unsuspecting buyers.

But even with the new look, Mittmann said the drug problem continues--though not as bad as before.

Since January, Mittmann said more than 150 people have been arrested in the neighborhood for buying, selling or possessing drugs.

“The drug activity is still there, but not near at the volume or blatant activity that it was before,” Mittmann said. “The drug people are feeling the squeeze.” Mittmann said the sting operations are continuing along with conventional tactics using undercover officers.

The focus now, he added, was on the out-of-town buyers who regularly drive through Chevy Chase looking for drugs. He said the area had become so notorious that drug dealers from other states would drive to Chevy Chase to do business with distributors.

“We are at a very critical point with the construction and relocation of the people and the different face the neighborhood is taking,” he said. “We still need a joint effort of the Police Department and the neighborhood. If it isn’t done, all the investment of our time and the millions of dollars put in by the Karcher Barry Co. will be wasted.”

Carla Martinez, a young mother of three who lives in a rental unit on Chevy Chase Drive, is one of those who agrees things need to improve.

“This is not a good place to raise children,” she said. “There are still bad people here, drugs, but it’s a little bit better. Some of the bad people have left.”

Mittmann conceded that “some diehards (drug dealers) are still there and won’t give up their lucrative business so easily. But I’d say we are going in the right direction.”