‘3rd World’ Arizona Town Seeks Help : Poverty: Kemp has helped community near Phoenix qualify for specialized programs. But funds are not available to make a dramatic impact.

Two years ago, Jack Kemp visited Guadalupe and was stunned by what he saw. This, he said, was a Third World economy.

Abutting Phoenix, the nation’s ninth-largest city, Guadalupe was a town of stark contrast to its urban neighbor. The people of Guadalupe lived in dilapidated plywood shacks, some still with outhouses. Forty percent lived below the poverty level. The per capita income was $4,286.

Kemp had been persuaded to skip a tennis game to see this. “I told him if he wanted to see poor, he didn’t need to go to the inner city,” said Jose Solarez Jr., a former Guadalupe town manager. “He could come to Guadalupe.”

The secretary of housing and urban development promised federal aid.

Has he delivered? Opinions are mixed.

“I thought we were going to receive money just for Guadalupe,” Mayor Anna Hernandez said. “We haven’t received any more money for housing.”

Felipa and Manuel Campoy believed they would receive money for a new house. Little has changed since Kemp visited their home.

They have no indoor plumbing; most of the cooking and all of the washing is done outdoors, where chickens peck and children play. The 800-square-foot home with a concrete floor shelters a variety of relatives.

Manuel Campoy, 59, a former employee of the Salt River Project irrigation and electric company, is disabled. His 63-year-old wife has kidney ailments and must undergo dialysis. She would settle for some appliances, but a new house is badly needed.

“I’m kind of embarrassed because we don’t have nothing nice,” she said. “I was hoping the government would do something, but they do nothing.”

Solarez is more appreciative. Kemp “helped open doors,” he said. “We have a good start. The fact remains, there is very little money available out there. It’s not the fault of Mr. Kemp if the money is not available.”

If little has changed in Guadalupe in two years, it should be no surprise. Little has changed in this square-mile town in decades.

Bright green, red and white pinatas swing from the overhang of a small store. Yaqui Indian women roll flour tortillas in their back yards and cook them on makeshift grills. Men play baseball on a dirt field near a whitewashed church. A fruit stand sells mangoes across from the town hall.

Almost everything bespeaks a Mexican village: its architecture, its mix of Indian and Mexican culture, its turbulent politics--and its poverty.

The town’s shacks can be seen by thousands who drive to work on Interstate 10 every day and from a resort on the other side of the freeway. The town has no barrier to the freeway, and when it rains, oil and other pollutants are carried through drainage pipes into yards.

Guadalupe is nearly 40% Yaqui Indian, but the reservation is more than 100 miles to the south in Tucson. The rest of the residents are mostly Mexican-Americans whose ancestors moved to the Phoenix area to work on nearby farms.

“We have our cultura. It’s our way. We are just a small town that is very family-oriented,” said Mayor Hernandez. “That doesn’t mean we want poverty. That doesn’t mean we don’t want a better Guadalupe for our children.”

Kemp, who refused multiple requests for interviews on the subject, insisted in a letter to a local paper that he has given the town unique access to services at HUD’s Office of Indian Programs.

This fall 20 homes for poor Guadalupe families will be built with funds earmarked for the distant Yaqui reservation, and Kemp has touted the spinoff benefits of construction jobs.

Kemp proposed that the area be a federal enterprise zone, offering businesses and entrepreneurs tax breaks for setting up shop in Guadalupe.

Others in town government said Kemp helped push through federal legislation allowing the town to be one of two metropolitan areas in the country with a rural designation, qualifying for Farm Home Administration loans.

“We didn’t dictate our future,” Solarez said. “Phoenix and Tempe surrounded us, and it wasn’t our fault we were urbanized.”

Guadalupe was established in 1914. It didn’t incorporate until 1975, and only then to oppose a freeway that was to run through the town’s center, Solarez said.

A distrust of government remains strong, and with good reason: In the mid-1980s, the town manager’s financial dealings were investigated, the police chief resigned after allegedly instructing an officer to plant heroin in residents’ homes and arrest them, and the mayor’s car was firebombed.

Meanwhile, serious problems fester. Antonia Campoy, a liaison for the elementary school district and a distant relative of the couple Kemp visited, said the town has a high dropout and suicide rate.

“I know a lot of kids don’t even make it to the freshman class and some drop out in seventh grade,” she said. “My daughter’s graduation eighth-grade class we had 54 Yaqui Indians. Four year’s later at high school graduation there were only 10 or 12.”

“I gave up on government,” said her husband, Rudy Campoy. “There have been some changes, but things like new streets and bus stops--that’s the least of our worries.”

Mary Hoy, the town’s community development coordinator, agreed that the very poor are slipping through the cracks. “Many of these houses can’t be rehabilitated. They would have to be replaced, and the money is just not there to help the poorest of the poor,” she said.

But Hoy defended efforts to give the town a face lift. She said officials hope one day to attract tourists from surrounding Anglo communities. She said people are surprised to learn that Guadalupe has a relatively low crime rate.

“We would like people to consider this a little Mexican town,” she said. “Some people don’t like that look, but for economic development it’s necessary. We got to make people stop thinking that it’s dangerous around here.”