Funds Accompany Recovery Advice : Business: Two venture capital firms are included in the newly opened Neighborhood Opportunity Center.

The Neighborhood Opportunity Center that opened Wednesday in the Crenshaw District, one of the areas hardest hit by last spring’s rioting, will put its money where its mouth is, organizers said.

The center is one of four opened citywide by the Presidential Task Force on Los Angeles Recovery to help business owners through the maze of bureaucratic hurdles that often hector new business enterprises.

But the Crenshaw center will provide not only business advice, but also badly needed capital, with two venture capital firms on site, task force member Jim Whitehead said.

“People didn’t (riot) because they had money, they did it because they didn’t have any,” Whitehead said. “But with this project, we will have an uprising of capital in the black community that has never been seen before.”

The lack of access to money in the city’s inner core and the resultant slow rate of business growth and employment in that area has been cited as one of the factors contributing to the unrest.

Each of the venture capital firms has promised to make available $1.5 million for business loans.

The Rev. E. V. Hill, pastor of Mt. Zion Baptist Church in Los Angeles and chairman of Community Brace Inc., together with the Tustin-based Trinity Broadcasting Network’s National Minority Television Inc., will manage one of the funds. National Minority Television is headed by televangelist Paul F. Crouch.

Crouch, whose “Praise the Lord” talk show is seen on more than 285 TBN television stations, has come under fire from critics who charge that the minority group is a sham founded to take advantage of programs meant for minority-owned businesses.

Neither Hill nor the Trinity Broadcasting Network returned telephone calls.

URB CAP Ventures is the other business lender that will work out of the center. It was set up by Wallace O. Stephens, owner of an engineering firm in Lanham, Md.

Stephens, who is African-American, said he decided to make the money available after being contacted by Whitehead. “We need to focus on our own destiny,” Stephens said.

Both groups have applied to take part in a Small Business Administration program that could triple the value of each firm’s assets and attract investors to the funds. They are awaiting final approval.

At a news conference last week announcing the center’s opening at the Founders National Bank, Executive Director Lynne Roy Rogers agreed with Stephens’ assessment of the need for self-help.

“We as a people have tremendous resources we have never tried to maximize,” Rogers told the crowd of about 100. “If this is to succeed, it’s going to take cooperation, it’s going to take collaboration, it’s going to take unity. We’ve got to think in terms of investing in our own community. We can no longer have a social service mentality, we must have a business mentality.”

Rogers said blacks must also “start businesses on another level,” including expanding and diversifying existing firms.

Local business people say they look forward to dealing with lenders who are local and familiar with the area.

“If the people know you, they have a good basis to decide whether you are worth the risk or not,” said William High, owner of a fire extinguisher supply company. “You’re not going to get that from banks, which try to get to know you by having you fill out loan applications. Their basis for lending depends on whether you’re well off economically, but that’s only part of the story.”

Stephens said his firm will consider all proposals regardless of size or scope.

“We will look at everything from mom-and-pops to high-tech firms,” Stephens said.

The Presidential Task Force last week also announced a $1.5-million grant to help minorities enter the travel industry.