A FORUM FOR COMMUNITY ISSUES : Today’s Agenda

Tired of the drugs, prostitution, noise and litter, many urban neighborhoods have written off their local parks. But one Los Angeles neighborhood not only fought back, but finally won. Making a Difference shows how a community came together and, although it took a decade, got the city to fence and gate Robert L. Burns Park, turning it into a local asset instead of a lure for litter and crime. The same strategies--persistence and patience--ought to apply to dozens of community problems. The tough part is getting the neighborhood organized for a long haul.

While the park’s neighbors were united by their desire to reclaim it, Pasadena’s Ben Yandell recounts the division engendered by a local church’s proposal to establish a shelter for the mentally ill homeless. He personally had to weigh risk to his daughter, who attended preschool at the church, and the security of his neighborhood against the needs of mentally ill street people. In Community Essay, Yandell wonders whether society has lost its sense of responsibility. Why, he asks, have we left this problem to volunteers and uneasy neighbors?

Everyone who lives today in an American city must yearn for a solution to the homeless problem. By most estimates, more than half of the people who live on our streets are mentally ill, and simply housing them is, at best, a half-measure. A robust economy will cure some homelessness. As for the rest, how do we weigh the cost? What’s it worth to regain streets lost to misery and panhandling?

In contrast, if we listen to new Americans we can freshen our sense of hope. In today’s Platform, immigrants talk about why they plan to vote (if they’re citizens) or wish they could. Bella Bril, a social worker in Hollywood, came here from Russia and “couldn’t believe people on the street could express their feelings so openly, even saying bad things about people in power.” And Gabriel Navarro is proud to be Mexican. But he believes that by becoming a U.S. citizen he can make his voice heard, that his vote can influence events back home.

Some immigrants are intimidated by the mechanics of democracy (the voting machines are hard to use) and ignorance about our political system. Perhaps we should be renovating voter outreach programs to offer more to hyphenated Americans who aren’t fluent in either English or democracy.

In Getting Answers, Los Angeles Police Chief Willie L. Williams and the head of the department’s noise enforcement team tell a citizen that the police can help with noisy commercial neighbors. But how does the LAPD weigh these quality-of-life laws against our urban mayhem?

In Youth, first-generation American Anna Songco, 16, admits that she picked a white boyfriend to gain acceptance. He was American, she writes, “full- pledged red, blue and WHITE. And I was a foreigner in his God-gracious, perfect land.” Anna said she lacked knowledge of her culture and lacked respect for herself and other Filipinos. Now she loves herself--her true Filipina self. But did she teach herself in vain, only to live with our ignorance?