PACOIMA : Tenants Hope Program Shuts Door on Crime

Tiburcio Vizcarra looks forward to the day when he can find a safe parking place for his aging but pampered green Ford Maverick. If it means he will have to show identification to reach his home, and drive through a guarded gate, then so be it, he says.

“They said they would close this gate in the beginning of this month, but that day still has not arrived,” said the 70-year-old Vizcarra, motioning to the steel portal that marks the western edge of Pacoima’s San Fernando Gardens Housing Development.

“People are still coming and going at all hours of the night,” he said.

Within the next three months, however, the Los Angeles Housing Authority hopes to swing the gate shut, ending an era of free rein for gangs and drug traffickers, and ushering in an era of controlled entry and self-policing.

San Fernando Gardens will be among the first three complexes citywide to begin the Community Observation Response Effort (CORE) program, which is aimed at creating watchdog groups for the newly gated complexes, according to Ron Carter, the Housing Authority’s citywide resident patrol manager.

“If we’re successful, five years from now we’ll be able to pull out LAPD reporting sheets that say it’s safer to live in public housing than in regular housing,” said Carter. “The only measure of success I have is when I personally am willing to move my family there and feel safe.”

The Housing Authority had delayed organizing tenant patrols until fencing and guard houses had been built to help control who enters housing complexes, said Carter. The agency plans to hire two citywide coordinators by the end of the month, followed by two field supervisors at each development to begin training the volunteer force. The patrols should be ready within the first quarter of the year, he said.

Although commonly called tenant patrols, CORE teams will not rove the grounds confronting troublemakers. Instead, they will try to mediate disputes, report illicit activity and respond to emergencies, Carter said.

“The one thing our training will do is explain to them you are not a police officer, you don’t want to put yourself in a direct threatening position,” Carter said.

Some residents who live in the 448-unit San Fernando Gardens complex say they welcome the fences and gates already in place, and anxiously await patrols they have heard are coming.

“It’s for the protection of the community,” said resident Esther Topete, a member of the development’s resident advisory council. “The majority of the people who talk to me about it complain that they haven’t started the patrols.”

Santana Dones, 28, a resident for four years, says she will feel safer about letting her children, ages 2 and 4, play unattended outside her Carl Street apartment.

“It’s good, because they won’t let the tough kids run around,” she said.