Life in City’s Toughest Neighborhood : Extra Police, Housing Aid Are Pledged to Help Embattled Washington Middle School Area

The meeting of the new neighborhood association began much like any other, with nervous introductions and people helping themselves to soft drinks and cookies. Then the talk turned to how some of them had spent their weekend.

The president had fought off a knife-wielding man trying to break into his apartment through a window. The vice president said she had to take her husband to an emergency room after he was badly beaten by gang members. At least one member had spent his days off painting over graffiti.

They live in the Washington Middle School neighborhood, recently ranked by city officials as the worst in Long Beach.

It’s an inner-city area where the sound of gunshots frequently mixes with the shouts of children, where graffiti dominates the landscape, where drug dealers hawk merchandise as conspicuously as ice cream vendors.

City officials agree that the predominantly Latino neighborhood around the school is in dire need of help. They have pledged an infusion of aid, including extra police protection, offers of low-cost loans to property owners and a crackdown on building code violations. It is one of two neighborhoods that city officials have selected for such aid.

The city’s efforts are welcome news to area residents, such as Catalina Munoz and Flor Luna, who recently stood behind a chain-link fence listening to the latest horror story from Munoz’s two children, Maribel, 9, and Rachel, 2.

“Three days ago,” said Maribel, her eyes widened, “I was playing with my friends when I saw a boy with a gun. He fired, and we had to run to a friend’s house.”

“I was scared, mommy,” added Rachel, clinging to her mother’s leg.

“This is why I don’t like them to play outside,” Catalina Munoz said in Spanish. “This is why we’re terrified.”

When Munoz and Luna gather to chat about the latest news in their lives, the conversation invariably turns to gangs and murders and drugs. “It’s like living in the middle of a war,” Munoz said.

Although it has a high crime rate and is more deteriorated than most, the Washington Middle School neighborhood is in many ways similar to others in the low-income inner city in western Long Beach, south of Pacific Coast Highway.

For many of the families living in the area, home means overcrowded, run-down apartment buildings. In these neighborhoods, alleys make good hiding places for gun-toting youngsters, and the streets provide the main playground for children.

And tragedies abound. Last month, a pregnant woman was shot during a drive-by shooting in a crime-plagued neighborhood just east of the Washington neighborhood. Kentzie Pope died on the operating table Aug. 2, just 20 minutes after her daughter was born.

Sandra Jean Lacy was sitting in front of her mother’s building on Chestnut Avenue last month when two warring gang members started shooting. Lacy was caught in the cross-fire and killed.

At the Long Beach Day Nursery down the street, staff members hear gunshots nearby every couple of weeks, said Mary Soth, executive director.

But the 80 children are sealed off from the outside by a gate and have never been in danger, she said.

After dark, gunshots are heard practically every night in the Washington neighborhood and other parts of the inner city, according to residents.

City officials said they have decided to concentrate on two neighborhoods because they don’t have the resources to tackle every crime-riddled neighborhood.

“We needed a place to start, so we’re going to work with the more troubled areas first,” Councilman Clarence Smith said.

Officials analyzed the city’s 84 census tracts, looking at such factors as crime rate, the number of welfare recipients, absentee property owners and complaints about building and

The tract that includes Washington school, for example, has the highest number of absentee landlords and the highest number of crimes against people, such as murders and rapes. In 1989, for example, there were 265 such crimes recorded for the tract.

City officials then toured the worst tracts in a van to pinpoint the two most deteriorated neighborhoods.

The Washington Middle School neighborhood--bounded by Pacific Coast Highway, Anaheim Street, Magnolia Avenue and Pacific Avenue--was rated as the worst.

“We saw drug deals being conducted right in front of our van, in broad daylight,” said Glenn Walker, a city information specialist in the division of advanced planning. “There’s no question this is an area in trouble.”

“It’s the worst of the worst,” said Councilman Clarence Smith, who represents the neighborhood.

The Whittier Elementary School neighborhood--bounded by Anaheim Street, Pacific Coast Highway, Orange Avenue and Gaviota Avenue--was declared the second-worst area. The Latino and Cambodian neighborhood has many of the same problems as Washington, ranging from graffiti to a high crime rate.

City officials said they plan to work on the neighborhoods simultaneously.

Officials are helping to organize a group of residents, landlords, school representatives and business owners who would work to improve the Washington neighborhood. On Saturday, they plan to start the campaign with a community fair at the 14th Street greenbelt, between Cedar and Chestnut avenues--a grassy strip used by children and homeless people alike.

“The basic premise,” said Michael Parker, the city’s neighborhood services bureau manager, “is that the city cannot bring about lasting change without the participation of the residents. It’s a partnership program.”

Many residents said they are eager for change and want to help. Don Moore, the Washington neighborhood association’s president, said: “We have to say as a community, ‘Enough! We’re not going to live like this any more.’ ”

Resident Elizabeth Drafton, 38, said: “I’m scared for my daughters. There are lots of drugs. A lot of homeless men hang out here. The alleys are full of drug dealers, and a lot of people come here to buy.”

Washington school officials have also joined the association. Although school officials said their campus is as safe as any other, they said panhandlers have been harassing teachers.

Principal Shawn Ashley said: “The staff, last year particularly, had some serious concerns about the homeless (using the grassy strip) as living quarters. They were hitting up teachers for money, and (the teachers) were feeling intimidated.”

But while some residents said they are willing to become involved, others said they fear retaliation by gang members.

“I mind my own business, do my own thing, stay away from trouble,” said resident Eddie Vaiaoga, 31.

Some absentee landlords have become active in the association.

Tony Vigil, who manages an apartment building on the 1400 block of Chestnut Avenue, said he spends weekends there painting over the most recent graffiti. He said he has found shotgun cartridges on the roof of his building and once came across a man walking nonchalantly down a sidewalk, assault rifle in hand.

Vigil said tenants are afraid to call police. He said he once offered to pay $400 to a family to call police when they heard people on the roof. “They wouldn’t do it,” he said.

Julie Averill, who owns an apartment building on the 1400 block of Cedar Avenue, said she spends about $1,000 a month fixing broken windows, removing graffiti and making other vandalism repairs.

She said her husband has been threatened so many times that he refuses to go to the neighborhood.

“All this stuff about cleanup and community involvement is very nice, but the real problem is crime, and it’s deadly,” Averill said. “They have to have more police.”

Police Cmdr. Dale Brown, who oversees the patrol bureau, said more officers were assigned to the neighborhood late last year and again in June.

Vigil, the apartment manager, said that the increased police presence made a difference but that the criminal element returned once police pulled back.

“These gang members and drug dealers, they’re like roaches,” Vigil said. “You flash the lights on them, and they scurry away. You turn the lights off, and they come back.

“So what we have is a situation that keeps going on and on and on without any permanent solution.”

Councilman Smith pointed out, however, that added police patrols “won’t solve everything. It has to be a combination of things. There have to be better living conditions. There have to be recreation facilities for children.

“There’s a lot of overcrowding there. It’s very depressing.”

STATISTICAL DATA

Boundaries of neighborhood targeted by City Hall as the most deteriorated in Long Beach: Pacific Coast Highway to Anaheim Street, Magnolia Avenue to Pacific Avenue.

The Washington Middle School neighborhood belongs to the city zone with the highest number of crimes against people.

The neighborhood also belongs to the city zone with the highest number of absentee landlords.

About 95% of the area’s housing is apartments.

There are more than a dozen social service agencies based in the predominantly Latino neighborhood.

Source: City of Long Beach. Washington Middle School Neighborhood A new community association is working with the city to clean up the neighborhood.