Riot Aid a Boon for Youth Jobs Program : Employment: Due to increased federal funding, 900 disadvantaged Santa Ana teens found summer work.

The smoke clouds that formed over Los Angeles during the May riots proved to have a silver lining for disadvantaged youths in Santa Ana.

When the looting stopped and the fires were finally extinguished, President Bush announced that additional financial aid would be funneled to several cities in the nation to ease the plight of inner-city youths like those in South Los Angeles, where high rates of unemployment had spawned anger and frustration.

One of the cities that qualified for this federal aid was Santa Ana.

Nearly 900 disadvantaged youths from Santa Ana--more than double the usual number--found summer jobs under the Job Training Partnership Act program, which saw its summer jobs budget more than double from $650,000 to $1.4 million this year.

Many of those who got jobs come from areas where the risk of gang involvement is high and jobs are difficult, if not impossible, to find.

“The extra money allowed us to double the amount of kids we usually hire for the summer,” said Patricia Nunn, director of the jobs program, who expressed hope that Washington’s commitment to increased funding for disadvantaged youths would not fade once the November elections are past.

Many of the teen-agers found jobs working in parks, schools, libraries and hospitals. Some even found work in private businesses such as McDonald’s, Carl’s Jr. and other well-known restaurants, which are sponsored by the Santa Ana Private Industry Council.

The only requirements for acceptance in the jobs program were that the teen-ager’s family have an income below a certain economic level, which varied according to family circumstances, and that the teen-ager live in Santa Ana.

For 17-year-old Gilbert Campos, having a job meant that he didn’t spend the summer “kicking it” on the street with his homeboys.

Campos acknowledged that he likes to be with his friends but said he likes having the money he earned even more.

“Before this year, I had applied for a job at 20 different places at least, and no one would give me one,” Campos said. “Now I have some money to do things.”

Benny Steven Castillo, 16, said that he too had applied numerous times in summers past but never received any offers or encouragement until this year, when the United Gang Council informed him that there were jobs available. The young father of an 8-month-old baby girl said that he feels “very lucky” to have a job.

“This check today is going to be my first paycheck,” Castillo said shyly. “I’m going to save it.”

Since starting work at a legal clinic, Castillo has developed aspirations of working for a law firm in some capacity. He said he had never realized how interesting it is to work in an office.

“I want to go to law school now that I see what it is like,” explained Castillo with pride. “I never liked school before, but now I want to learn.”

Other teen-agers, like 18-year-old Jorge Gomez and 17-year-old Alex Le, found work in similar office environments, performing bookkeeping and clerical tasks for the county’s Juvenile Court and Santa Ana’s finance department, Nunn said.

Le said he hopes to be admitted to the U.S. Military Academy at West Point next year. He said he picked up some valuable skills working with computers through the program.

One former training program worker returned to serve as a counselor for teen-agers not much younger than herself.

Sichan Tep, 23, who had a training program summer job in 1986, is enrolled at Cal State Fullerton.

“Many of the workers here look to me for advice and ask me how they can get to college too,” Tep said. “I know how hard it was for me, and I just try to help them with their job or college applications.”

This year, the training program was able to provide career guidance classes for the teen-agers on a weekly basis. The guidance classes covered such subjects as how to dress and act when interviewing for a job.

Nunn said the fallout from the riots has been very beneficial to the training program.

“I’m sorry about those terrible riots,” she said. “But at least something good came out of it.”