QUALITY OF LIFE IN THE VALLEY : Yvonne Lovato, VOICE activist

“I used to know everybody around here, but now they’re all renters renting from absentee landlords.

“The area also is becoming very commercialized--no longer the little ma-and-pop stores. They are tearing down the old, historic homes in the barrio and building new apartment buildings.

“I don’t remember seeing marked-up walls. Graffiti gives birth to crime and crime gives birth to graffiti. They’re messages of prostitution, of laundering money, of selling drugs.

“It’s not only affecting children, it’s affecting business. People are afraid to buy in places because there’s graffiti there.

“When I was growing up, I could get on my bike and ride around the block and not worry about abduction, about rape. I will not allow my daughter to even go down to the little store about two blocks away.

“A couple of months ago, my son was at a family fiesta at one of the churches in Pacoima. He drove in front of a Blazer, waved and they thought he made some kind of gang sign.

“They showed him a shotgun. He raced up and down the freeway for about an hour, trying to attract somebody’s attention. He was able to get away, but we lived in panic for two, three months. They say that they get your license plates, they’ll tag you and then just blow you away. We had to get all new license plates.

“I’d like to see public affordable housing for all these people who are coming into this area. I’d like to see the absentee landowners be checked on by some building and safety watchdog program.

“How about programs for our kids so these kinds of gang people or wanna-bes who are influencing our children have somewhere to go?

“I can’t see anything more important than cleaning up the street of graffiti. Through VOICE, we’re working on a graffiti system. A city or state agency needs to clean it up on a regular basis, not ask the community organizations to do it. That’s like saying our police office or fire force will be based on community volunteers. Can you imagine what kind of state of chaos we’d be in?”