OUTSIDE LOOKING IN : Outside Looking In is an occasional column reporting on how Central Los Angeles communities and residents are portrayed in news media outside the city.

A recent segment of ABC’s “Nightline” on “Angels of the City” profiled three people working to help the needy in Central Los Angeles.

Chuck McClain runs Skid Row Access, a program in which homeless people build wooden toys and other artworks that are sold in local stores. The homeless earn a portion of the profits.

“It’s of the community. They’re the ones calling the shots,” McClain said during the segment.

The program also featured Jude Tiersma, an instructor in urban studies and doctoral student at Fuller Seminary in Pasadena who moved into a Downtown apartment building in a mostly Latino neighborhood.

“What people in inner-city areas don’t need is people doing things for them and fixing things for them, but sharing life and working together to say, ‘What can we do to make this a better place?’ ” Tiersma said.

Herman Villoria, who lost his job at McDonnell Douglas last year, was singled out for his work helping the needy through the Missionary Brothers of Christ. Every Saturday, Villoria said, he helps distribute food at Lafayette Park.

“My dream was to go to Ethiopia and help out with the poor there,” Villoria said. “But then I remembered the words, ‘Don’t let what you can’t do stop you from doing what you can do.’ So I decided, I can do it right here in Los Angeles.”

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USA Today reported last month that U.S. Census figures show Huntington Park has the nation’s third-highest percentage of foreign-born residents.

The newspaper cited 1990 Census figures showing that 59.4% of Huntington Park’s 56,000 residents were born in Mexico. Ric Loya, a city councilman and local high school teacher, told USA Today that the community’s predominantly Latino population “is nice because we don’t have to deal with the racial hassles . . . (but) the kids miss out on the multicultural setting.”

Other area communities on the Top 10 foreign-born list were South Gate, eighth with 49.3%, and East Los Angeles, ninth with 49%. Hialeah, Fla., topped the list with 70.4%, followed by Miami with 59.7%.