Kemp Unveils $19-Million Aid Package for Riot Areas

In one of his last official acts, Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Jack Kemp unveiled a $19-million economic assistance package Friday designed to help the rebuilding of riot-scarred Los Angeles.

“Today’s grant--targeted to empower residents rather than bureaucracies--offers a fitting symbol of all we have worked to accomplish,” said Kemp, who made the announcement before addressing a conference at UCLA on poverty.

Of the total, $6 million represents federal community development money approved and in the pipeline, but Kemp said he will expedite the process to make it available within two weeks--as much as six months early.

The $6 million will be split evenly among two nonprofit development organizations--Rebuild L.A., the extragovernmental body set up after the riots, and Community Build, the post-riot initiative launched by Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Los Angeles). Each group must provide $1.5 million in matching funds from non-federal sources, expanding the total to $9 million.

It is the largest pool of public money directed toward Rebuild L.A., said Barry A. Sanders, co-chairman of Rebuild L.A. Private industry has signaled its intention to invest more than $100 million on assorted projects, Sanders said.

“We’re delighted to have this indication of support,” said Sanders, who added that the new funds will be quickly channeled toward development efforts.

In addition, Kemp said the AFL-CIO has agreed to provide $10 million from its pension investment program for use in building and rehabilitating homes in South-Central. The union money will guarantee the costs of repair and new construction, officials said.

The departing housing secretary was one of many luminaries from government, academia and business who gathered at UCLA on Friday for the first part of a two-day conference examining a perennial, albeit seemingly unanswerable question: How to reduce poverty in the United States.

Prompted by last year’s riots and underwritten exclusively by the Los Angeles business community, the broad-ranging forum seeks to shape public policy by focusing attention on poverty, examining its intractable causes and insidious effects--and suggesting solutions. Organizers, who plan to publish a book, particularly seek to influence the incoming Clinton Administration.

“We hope this conference will serve as a vehicle for change,” said B. Kipling Hagopian, a principal organizer and general partner of Brentwood Associates, a Los Angeles-based venture capital firm.

Participants’ views generally reflected mainstream liberal and conservative thought at U.S. universities, think tanks and foundations.

In the first day’s panels, discussion of thorny issues from welfare reform, the impoverished underclass, and improving educational opportunities proved predictably provocative.

Conservative emphasis on the potentially deleterious effects of single motherhood--particularly among African-American women in inner cities--conflicted with the views of those who stressed structural shortcomings, including discrimination, as culprits propelling economic inequality.

“There’s a tendency to demonize the poor,” said David Hayes-Bautista, director of UCLA’s Center for the Study of Latino Health.

Some in attendance expressed disappointment that many speakers were scholars who viewed poverty from afar. “These people come from an elitist mind-set,” said Evelyn Knight, a longtime community worker from South-Central. “They need to get out into the community more.”