Center of Pride : Costa Mesa Teens Helped Design Their Neighborhood Youth Facility

The teens will be the first to admit it: Pride just doesn’t come easily when you live on Shalimar Drive.

In this residential neighborhood on the industrial side of town, drug dealers unabashedly peddle their wares as children look on. Gang members swagger in the streets. Fights among rival gang members break out regularly, and gunshots punctuate the night.

“All we would see around here are problems: gangs, drugs. Every day,” said Nadia Flores, whose quiet way makes her seem older than her 14 years. “We didn’t know there could be other things in our lives, in our neighborhood. Good things.”

Then came the Shalimar Teen Center. Even before it opened in February, the kids living in the area knew it was going to be a special place. Their place. That’s because they designed and developed it themselves, from the placement of a 1970s-era burnt-orange couch--”OK, so it’s pretty ugly,” conceded one teen, “but, hey, it was free”--to the selection of magazines on the coffee table.

The three-bedroom apartment that houses the center was donated by St. Andrew’s Presbyterian Church of Newport Beach, which budgeted about $25,000 to fund the center, its equipment and furnishings. But in an attempt to help raise the teens’ self-esteem, organizers--which include St. Andrew’s, Women of Vision and Orange County Congregation Community Organization--allowed them to design the center’s layout and programs. It is believed to be the only such teen center in the county, organizers said.

For the two dozen area teens who use it Monday through Thursday, the center is a quiet place where they can come after school, hang out, study and shut the door on the gang members.

“Finally, we have something here to be proud of,” said Cristina Espinoza, a 14-year-old with an ever-present smile. “And the best part is that we had a part in it.”

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Inside the center, there’s a living room with the comfy furniture on which the youths can lounge and prop their feet. There’s a sunny kitchen with lots of snacks. The tidy bedrooms are set up as study, counseling and computer rooms. Nothing fancy. Just the comforts of home many don’t have in their homes.

But the job is not done because of fear of potential violence in this neighborhood where, residents say, gang members and drug dealers brazenly go about their way.

The Shalimar neighborhood is anchored by Shalimar Drive, a two-block-long street, and includes James Street and Wallace Avenue. About 50 four-unit apartment buildings line those roads, and nearly 1,000 live in the area.

In a recent neighborhood meeting at St. Joachim Church, parents and their children expressed fears over the increasing gang and drug activities. The problems were barely tolerable before, said those at the meeting. But they are more fearful now than ever because of two recent gang-related attacks that involved a drive-by shooting and an assault.

On May 16, two teen-agers were wounded in a drive-by while they were working on a car engine on Shalimar Drive, according to police. The next day, in what investigators believed was a retaliation for the shooting, one car plowed into another and in the ensuing fight, a young man was clubbed with a hammer.

“Shalimar has required quite a bit of attention by the Police Department over several years,” said Lt. Alan Kent, who supervises the policing of the city’s west side. Kent pointed to drug sales, gangs and building code violations as being the prevalent problems. There are no crime statistics available specifically for the Shalimar neighborhood, police said.

However, Kent said, “It’s one of our target areas for selective enforcement to try to improve some of the conditions.”

To address the growing concerns, police, parents and community leaders this year formed the Shalimar Task Force.

The area teens also participate. They’d do anything, they said, to maintain for themselves some semblance of control in their neighborhood.

“I guess that’s why [the teen center] means so much to us,” said Cristina one afternoon while settling into a fuzzy orange armchair in the color-coordinated living room. “Once we’re in here, we don’t feel like we’re in danger. We don’t feel like fear is controlling us. And we have other things to focus on.”

Like making better grades. With the help of volunteer tutors, many of the youths have brought home glowing report cards.

Like getting jobs. “A lot of us have been earning good money,” said Nadia, who now works after school at St. Andrew’s day-care center.

Like being introduced to different pastimes. “We went to a ballet last week,” Nadia exclaimed, a bit incredulously, as she recalled a performance by the Royal Danish Ballet. “It wasn’t great but we had never been to a ballet before.”

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More activities, from sailing to touring local college campuses, have been scheduled in the coming weeks.

“What we have learned as more and more kids are using the center is that when you live on Shalimar every day of your life, you don’t have goals, you don’t have vision, you don’t really believe that your life could be any different from what is offered on Shalimar,” said Candy Gibeaut, a volunteer who also runs the Shalimar Learning Center for grade-school children next door.

“We hope that the programs at the center--programs which the kids came up with, I may add--expose them to different things and also would give them more confidence about their abilities,” Gibeaut said. “We also think the center gives them pride in their neighborhood.”

Originally, organizers had planned to have a teen center a few miles from Shalimar, on Pomona Avenue. However, as they discussed the plan with the area youths, they found that the teens wanted a place close to home.

“We live here. Our brothers and sisters are here. Our family is here,” said Erika Torres, 14. “I think confidence in ourselves starts with being proud of where we come from.”

But pride would have been difficult to come by had it not been for the teen center, Erika and her friends said.

“Around here, there wasn’t a place where kids could get help,” Nadia said. “I couldn’t get help at home because my parents work and don’t have time.

“Here, the adults are helpful and they care,” she said. “They show us that we have options, that we can graduate and get a job and have a future. They introduce us to new things, things we never thought of, never had an opportunity to be a part of.”