Earthquake: The Road To Recovery :...

Fillmore merchants devastated by the Jan. 17 earthquake will take a large step toward recovery Monday, when they resume business in a huge fabric tent near their damaged Central Avenue stores.

With financial assistance of an undisclosed amount from former Laker basketball player A.C. Green, the city of Fillmore has erected the 11,000-square-foot tent in a downtown park to serve as a makeshift mini-mall for displaced businesses. Trailers have been installed nearby to house other merchants.

“It’s going to be great,” Dale Crockett, president of the Fillmore Chamber of Commerce, said Friday. Crockett’s photography studio and the chamber’s office are among the 11 Fillmore businesses that will reopen inside the tent.

“Everybody’s been closed a month, with no cash and no cash flow,” Crockett said. “Without the tent, a lot of these companies would have to fold.”

While the temporary structures will help put Fillmore business owners back on their feet, thousands of quake victims in Fillmore and in Simi Valley are still staying with friends and family while waiting to repair their homes or find new housing, emergency officials said.

In both cities, inspectors continued to find more damage.

Fillmore inspectors have issued 329 red tags to buildings and trailers so heavily damaged that they are unsafe to occupy, and another 350 yellow tags to buildings considered risky to enter, city building official Jim Scheidt said.

In Simi Valley, inspectors have slapped yellow tags on 555 residences and businesses and 101 red tags on structures of all types. Inspectors have declared more than 7,500 damaged structures safe, officials said.

Damage in Simi Valley is estimated at more than $400 million, and many damaged buildings still have not been inspected, Assistant City Manager Mike Sedell said.

“There are still a few people living in tents in the front yards of homes that they either cannot re-enter or (are) afraid to,” Sedell said. “But by and large, people have put roofs over their heads.”

Just 54 people remain in an emergency shelter countywide, all at the Red Cross shelter at Fillmore Middle School, shelter manager John Hernandez said.

“Things are slowing down, but we still have 13 families who haven’t found housing, especially large families with eight to 10 members,” Hernandez said. Red Cross volunteers have recruited bands and entertainers to boost sagging morale, he said.

“It’s gotten to the stage where they’re very worried,” Hernandez said.

Toni Palazuelos, a county mental health counselor, said the crowding and lack of privacy at the shelter have taken their toll on volunteers and earthquake victims alike.

“It’s starting to wear on the volunteers,” Palazuelos said. “Everybody’s tired and has complaints.”

Federal disaster officials have spent $171 million in temporary housing assistance and housing repairs since the earthquake in Los Angeles and Ventura counties, said Russ Edmonston of the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

The grants, available without regard to financial need, help homeowners and renters pay for temporary housing until their residences are repaired or permanent housing is located.

At the same time, 147 lower-income Fillmore and Simi Valley residents have found permanent replacement housing in communities as far away as Ventura and Oxnard with federal grants.

Carolyn Briggs, executive director of the Area Housing Authority of Ventura County, said volunteers from Fresno to San Diego have helped interview applicants for the aid program, which provides up to 18 months of assistance.

Yet for every family that has found new quarters under the program, Briggs said, three other families with vouchers have not located new housing.

“People are still holding out, doing a little house shopping, because they’re temporarily staying with friends or relatives,” she said.

“They want to find something closer to home or want to wait until school lets out before moving,” Briggs said. “Pretty soon they’ll start looking farther afield.”