Making A Difference in Your Community : Volunteers Sought for Housing Aid

Agencies such as the Asian Pacific Counseling and Treatment Center are watching the calendar closely as a housing deadline looms for hundreds of earthquake victims this summer.

“We’re talking about a lot of families who are in danger of being homeless,” said Allen Ongchangco, the project coordinator for the Mobility Plus program at the center’s Van Nuys office.

Mobility Plus was set up through the Los Angeles City Housing Authority at several San Fernando Valley agencies to try to help the thousands of Northridge earthquake victims still living on federal housing subsidies find places to live when their vouchers expire this summer.

Low-income victims were offered 18-month rent subsidies of up to 70% of their annual income. But many of the 370 families that Ongchangco is assisting do not understand that the aid is about to run out.

“They are overly optimistic that the government help will continue,” said Ongchangco. Many are recent immigrants who do not realize how an American bureaucracy works, he said.

He needs volunteers to serve as translators and help break through some cultural barriers that can block the clients from getting help.

“We’ve found some creative ways of doing it,” said Ongchangco, who has asked clients to bring in English-speaking relatives to serve as interpreters. Even so, he has found that the answers he is given at first are not the entire truth.

For example, the father in an Asian family may say at first that there is suitable housing and plenty of food. But in reality, the family is living a bare existence in a garage, and has held back because of a cultural inclination not to seek help.

“You really have to go between the lines and beyond the mask they put on,” Ongchangco said. “A lot of them don’t want to say it out loud that they need help.”

Gender has also played a role at the center. Because most of the intake counselors are female, male Armenian immigrants have been reluctant to ask for help. Ongchangco has found that he has been able to make better progress working individually with those men.

Volunteers would need good interviewing skills and the capacity to learn how to find the assistance, job training and budgeting guidance the clients need when their housing subsidies run out.

Especially needed--but not required--are volunteers with behavioral science or social work backgrounds. Chinese, Korean, Vietnamese and Farsi speakers are also needed.

The Asian Pacific Counseling and Treatment Center is based in Koreatown. For more information, Ongchangco can be reached at the center’s Van Nuys office, 14435 Sherman Way, Suite 205, or at (818) 909-0698.

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Other volunteering opportunities:

Pacifica Hospital of the Valley in Sun Valley is looking for volunteers in several departments, including radiology, the emergency room, records, the information desk and the gift shop. Volunteers would help transport patients, deliver meal trays, answer phones, greet patients and visitors and do clerical tasks. Information: Daren Ayres at (818) 252-2133 or the human resources department at (818) 252-2260.

The Los Angeles Community Action Network is looking for volunteers and groups who need volunteers in the San Fernando Valley. The network connects volunteers to 50 to 100 events each month such as casino nights in Burbank and North Hollywood, celebrity fund-raising games and local farmer’s markets. Information; (310) 391-5770.

Jewish Big Brothers of Los Angeles has been suffering from a shortage of big brothers--especially in the northern and western San Fernando Valley--since the Northridge earthquake. The group pairs men with boys and girls 6 to 18 who need responsible male role models. Forty children are on the waiting list. Volunteers are carefully screened and supervised by a counseling service. Information: (213) 852-1173.

Getting Involved is a weekly listing of volunteering opportunities.