Homework Home Work : Volunteers Fix Up House for Use as Tutoring Center

Concerned about youth violence and drugs in the city’s Grace-Pacific neighborhood, residents are turning a run-down, abandoned house into an after-school oasis and homework headquarters for elementary and high school students.

“We are making a definitive change,” said Rosalinda Solis, a 13-year resident of Pacific Avenue who is among volunteers spending their weekends painting, replacing rotted carpet and removing mildew and graffiti from the house at 348 Grace Ave.

“We need a change,” declared Solis, who once witnessed a homicide in front of her apartment complex and is now active in neighborhood improvement projects. Opening a tutoring center, she said, will be a step in the right direction.

Under an agreement with the landlord, the two-bedroom house will be leased for $500 a month to La Habra Neighborhood Housing Service, a nonprofit organization that arranges low-interest loans to help people with modest incomes purchase homes.

Volunteers have been working on the house for several weeks, not only making cosmetic changes such as trimming the shrubbery but even replacing corroded wiring and kitchen appliances.

All of their materials, from paint to electrical supplies, have been donated by local businesses, as have the study tables and chairs that will soon be moved in.

With the help of community activist Rose Espinoza, who leads an after-school tutoring program from her garage on 4th Street, Grace-Pacific children will be able to drop in for help with their homework, starting later this month.

Espinoza, who once benefited from NHS’s services herself and now belongs to the group, said the after-school tutoring sessions will be fashioned after her program and will be operated by Grace-Pacific community volunteers.

One of the supporters is Jaime Alvarado, 21, a lifelong Grace Avenue resident. “Kids should have a chance at a better life,” he said. “The kids see everything that happens around here--the shootings, guys drinking and doing drugs, shooting up. That’s not good for them.”

Parents and grandparents are enthusiastic about the homework house, which Espinoza said will also offer English and parenting classes and an adult class for those who want to earn a high school diploma.

“Many of the families here are poor,” said Teresa Huerta, a longtime Pacific Avenue resident who plans to take her 5-, 7- and 8-year-old grandchildren to the center. “The parents work all day, speak little English and lack a formal education.

“We can’t help our kids with their homework, and we can’t pay to enroll them in after-school sports or recreation activities,” she said. “But we all want our kids to get ahead.”