Federal Officials Get Street-Level View on Vermont

Testifying before government officials is often a stuffy affair in a sterile conference room. But on Friday, Tony Love and other small business owners along Vermont Avenue were able to share their views without having to leave their shops.

Coming to the front doors of their struggling businesses were members of the House of Representatives, the Clinton Administration and the mayor’s office.

Love, who owns Sir Tony’s Fashion, told the officials of his daily struggle to make a living and the difficulty he faces in getting loans. He said he has sold drugs, spent time in jail but had settled on a new enterprise--entrepreneurship.

Questioning him from the sidewalk were two members of the House Banking Committee, Reps. Maxine Waters (D-Los Angeles) and Joseph Kennedy (D-Mass.), Housing Secretary Henry Cisneros and Mayor Richard Riordan.

Organized by Waters, the tour was designed to examine the credit problems facing residents of the inner city as part of a review of the Community Reinvestment Act, which requires financial institutions to issue loans in their communities.

Riordan and Cisneros promised to assist in creating a commercial development plan for Vermont Avenue.

The mayor said he decided this week to appoint an aide to develop and implement an economic plan for Vermont. Cisneros said he will seek federal funds to help plan a commercial corridor along the struggling area of Vermont.

Cisneros said the funds might be funneled to Community Build, a South-Central Los Angeles community development organization that has received $3 million in HUD funds.

Cisneros brought along good news on another front when he announced that the city and county of Los Angeles, and the neighboring cities of Glendale and Long Beach, would be the site of the country’s second “Homeless Initiative” and would receive a significant increase in funding for the homeless.

Although no amount was specified, Washington, D.C., received $20 million over three years when it was selected last year.

Officials estimate that there are 80,000 homeless in Los Angeles County, which Cisneros called “one of the largest homeless populations in the country.”

The program, which will drastically expand the $1 million that the city receives for emergency shelters, will focus on those who live in urban encampments, the mentally ill, homeless families and those who recently became homeless. The city and county recently combined their homeless initiatives in the new Los Angeles Services Authority.

“This is terrific news for Los Angeles,” said Riordan, who applied for the funding last month.

At a neighborhood association meeting held at a community center a few blocks from Waters’ home, she complained about the lack of adequate city planning in the neighborhood, citing a Payless shoe store--one of the few chain stores to build in the neighborhood since the riots--as an eyesore.