L.A. Votes $2.5 Million for Hope in Youth Project

After an intensive lobbying campaign by religious leaders, the Los Angeles City Council on Tuesday committed $2.5 million to a proposed anti-gang program that had drawn opposition because of its cost and questions about its relative effectiveness.

The council voted 10 to 2 to contribute the money to the Hope in Youth organization, a fledgling effort proposed by Cardinal Roger M. Mahony and other religious leaders that proposes to fight gangs by infusing the city’s toughest neighborhoods with nearly 500 paid counselors and 8,000 volunteers from nine religious denominations.

With Tuesday’s contribution, and an earlier $2.9-million donation from Los Angeles County, the Hope in Youth program will be able to hire a quarter of its counselors and begin to organize volunteers, said Mike Clements, campaign coordinator for the group.

Hope in Youth gained wide attention when it was proposed last spring. But the group soon found itself in a confrontation with Mayor Tom Bradley, who said in March that the city could not afford to donate to the program.

The mayor declined through a spokeswoman on Tuesday to say whether he would veto the $2.5-million expenditure. But the 10 votes on the City Council in its favor would appear to give Hope in Youth backers enough votes to override Bradley.

“Today’s vote was extremely important in lining up future support,” said Clements, who helped mobilize several hundred cheering supporters for the council meeting. “The commitment of each jurisdiction only strengthens our efforts. We are certainly not going to let down on this now.”

Efforts already are under way to obtain grants from foundations, toward a total fund-raising goal of $17 million, Clements said.

Hiring and training of 120 counselors will begin as soon as possible to staff 40 anti-gang teams. Each three-person team will include a counselor to work with young people, another to train parents and a third to help organize support for schools, Clements said.

In addition, he said, each team will work with at least 50 volunteers, mostly supplied by churches, synagogues and mosques in their neighborhoods.

Opponents of the city contribution said they had no objection to those plans but to the means by which the organization was acquiring the money.

Council members Mark Ridley-Thomas and Rita Walters, who both represent South-Central Los Angeles, said the plan had not undergone the same scrutiny as other anti-gang programs that request funding from the city.

Walters said she worried that the money, to come from the Community Redevelopment Agency, would hurt efforts to build low-income housing in her district.

“I am not convinced they can deliver on this at all, particularly when they have no demonstrated track record,” said Ridley-Thomas, who held a spirited debate with Hope in Youth leaders. “I can’t see it, particularly when you have other groups who have been toiling in this field for years and their funds are being cut.”

But the religious leaders who spoke to the council said they were the only group large enough, and with enough clout, to reduce the pervasive influence of gangs.

“This builds on the broad experience of all the religious denominations in working with young people,” said the Rev. William Johnson, a leader of the South Central Organizing Committee. “We will be putting all of our track records together.”

Clements said that previous gang efforts had been successful on a small scale. “But what is needed is a massive response in raising the money, putting together the volunteers and getting the broad-based support,” he said. “We aren’t competing with any other organization.”

Councilman Richard Alatorre successfully led the council effort to push the funding through and to defeat Ridley-Thomas’ proposal to send the expenditure to a committee for more study.