SAN CLEMENTE : A Sense of Pride Makes Area Shine

Old cars and furniture sat abandoned by the curbs on West Canada, often for weeks. Graffiti marred the walls of dilapidated buildings. At the most deteriorated home on the block, stucco fell from exterior walls and dusty newspapers were piled to the ceiling inside.

But to this street and three others came Neighborhood Pride. Dozens of volunteers, city workers and residents scoured the block as part of the city program, painting, cleaning and hauling away about 140 tons of garbage.

Washing off years of grime, they uncovered something that had not shown itself in the neighborhood for a long time--a sense of self-worth. And on a return visit to one elderly man’s home last month, the volunteers saved something even more precious--his life.

Armed with paint bucket and ladder, program coordinator Leslie Davis knocked on the door of 87-year-old Vito Carito one morning and got no answer. She went inside and found Carito lying motionless on the bathroom floor.

“He had been there for at least a day,” Davis said. “We found him just in time.”

Carito had suffered a stroke. He was recovering in a rest home when he unexpectedly died last week.

While Carito was in the rest home, Davis and other Neighborhood Pride volunteers returned to the modest two-bedroom house, which Carito helped build in the 1940s, and gave it a last coat of paint.

“We didn’t just want to make this a better place for him to live,” Davis said, “we want to make it look better for the whole neighborhood.”

Appearances have become important to residents of the four-block area, which is less than a mile from the city pier.

Crime in the area had more than doubled over the previous year, police said. Abandoned cars and discarded furniture littered the streets. Graffiti marred aging apartment complexes, and some landlords helped overcrowd the area by renting one unit to several families, Davis said.

The city organized the cleanup effort but didn’t stop there. Paint was given out free to landlords. Code enforcement officers and police issued parking and building violations and no-littering signs were installed on sidewalks.

Although much work remains, Jaime Garza, a 19-year-old from Mexico City, said the neighborhood has become a better place to live.

“We did not like how it looked before,” he said. “But it was dirty everywhere and one man or one family could not clean the street. Today, it is much better than before and it is easier to make everything stay clean.”

The neighborhood’s pride in its surroundings has paid other dividends, police say.

“We definitely get more calls reporting crime from there,” said Jan Sener, a San Clemente crime prevention officer. “We’re real positive about this program. It helps knowing that the citizens are behind us when we go down there.”

Last month, the City Council voted to spend $85,000 to extend Neighborhood Pride.

Davis said that another cleanup day will be scheduled for the fall. The city also will try to implement a monthly cleanup for neighborhoods that have been helped by Neighborhood Pride.

Gene Begnell, a Fire Department battalion chief and one of the volunteer painters, said the program was important because “pride is contagious. One person puts up a fence and pretty soon everyone is putting up a fence.”

“I don’t think you can cure social problems with paint,” he said, “but I do think if you care about the city, you can lead by example.”