PACOIMA : The Poor Now Face Mounting Desperation

One of the rifts that actually narrowed after the Northridge earthquake was the one in Pacoima that lies between barely making it and desperation.

More than 150 people waited for a bag of food or an appointment with doctors inside a motor home in front of the shattered office of the El Proyecto del Barrio social service group on Van Nuys Boulevard.

“My wife is inside,” said Miguel Angel Avalos, 39, an unemployed machinist who left his native Durango, Mexico in 1972. “She’s a little nervous, and her head and back hurt.”

Avalos, his wife, and two children moved into a garage last year to save rent money. He gets by with help from his siblings, he said, but now they too need help.

Avalos’ story was all too familiar for workers at El Proyecto del Barrio, which has served as a hub of disaster assistance for Pacoima’s predominantly Latino population.

El Proyecto is set up to provide medical help to about 35 people a day. Now it serves about 100 per day in the parking lot in front of the building, said Corrie Alvarez, administrator of the clinic. Inspectors placed a yellow tag on the structure itself, limiting access.

Local hospitals and national aid groups have since come through with badly needed antibiotics, vitamins and insulin, but all of those are running short again, she said.

Of particular worry is the insulin, which needs to be refrigerated, said Alvarez. And statistically, the Latino population has a higher rate of diabetes than the population at large, she noted.

Elsewhere on Pacoima’s residential streets, tents remain in yards. Many recent immigrants still fear going back into buildings, recalling the un-reinforced structures that tumbled during earthquakes in Mexico and Central America, Alvarez said.

Most businesses along Van Nuys Boulevard were back in operation this week, but they lacked customers. Monica Gonzalez figured she would sell a lot of second-hand clothes, furniture and household goods from her store, Ney Segunda Mano, at Van Nuys Boulevard and San Fernando Road. But she has been bored instead.

“People are saying they’re going back to their countries, or moving to places they think are safer,” she said. “Business is dying.”