Clinic to Take Immunization Program to Neighborhood : Health: El Proyecto del Barrio will use federal funds in its outreach effort to vaccinate 150 children in the San Fernando Gardens project.

Afraid of deportation or discouraged by lengthy waiting room delays, many poor San Fernando Valley residents shun vaccinations for their children, even though the shots are free.

To reach some of those people, a local clinic will set up shop next month in the courtyard of a Pacoima housing project, inoculating youngsters in their own back yards.

The outreach effort dovetails with a nationwide effort to prevent the spread of such diseases as measles, polio and diphtheria.

Immunization rates for children fall below 60% in 37 states, according to the Children’s Defense Fund.

In Los Angeles County, the rate is even lower.

Officials estimate that only 42% of the 300,000 2-year-olds have received appropriate vaccinations.

El Proyecto del Barrio, the group overseeing the local immunization program, hopes to vaccinate 150 children in the San Fernando Gardens housing project April 25 with medicine provided by the county under a federally funded program.

The local program is the brainchild of the San Fernando Valley Unity Coalition, a group of about 60 nonprofit organizations that formed after the spring riots to improve conditions in the Valley.

“There’s a big need for us to go to them,” said Corrie Alvarez, the clinic’s administrator. “Lots of times, they don’t have transportation to get to the clinics or they don’t want to wait there for hours. There’s also fear because many of them are undocumented.”

Many residents are unaware that proof of citizenship or income level is not required to obtain free vaccinations at county clinics and dozens of private, nonprofit agencies, said Dan Martin, an official with the county’s immunization program.

“You could walk out of your mansion in Beverly Hills and get a free vaccine if you were willing to wait,” he said.

The lines are particularly long in the fall when many children return to school because under state law youngsters must be inoculated before entering kindergarten, Martin said.

Despite the law, many parents balk at inoculating preschoolers because the shots must be administered in a series of four or five visits, he said. “It’s not something that can be done in a single visit,” Martin said.

“We would worship at the feet of someone who could figure out how to give you a shot once in your life.”

Alvarez of El Proyecto said the agency will schedule clinic visits or revisit the projects to make sure residents obtain the full series of injections.

The low immunization rate is believed responsible for the nationwide resurgence of measles in the late 1980s, Martin said.

In Los Angeles County, 7,000 people contracted measles between 1987 and 1991 and 38 of them died, he said.

Most of the victims were under age 5.

Last month, President Clinton announced plans to spend an additional $300 million in federal funds this year to expand the government’s immunization effort.

The government was already spending $343 million on the vaccine program.