Housing Project Overhaul Raises Eastside Hopes

A $50-million plan to rebuild a major portion of the aging, gang-plagued Pico-Aliso public housing project in Boyle Heights isn’t just another construction job.

According to some, it’s a social experiment to try to turn around one of the toughest neighborhoods in Los Angeles--a roll of the dice for a part of town that hasn’t had much luck.

“It is more than just a housing project,” said Xavier Mendoza, the man the Los Angeles Housing Authority has put in charge of the construction work. “We’re trying to upgrade the whole area by bringing in other things.”

By that, Mendoza and other planners mean more retail businesses and restaurants, which are virtually nonexistent in the tough streets just east of the Los Angeles River. The closest supermarket to the World War II-era project is almost 3 miles away.

There is also an aggressive social agenda beyond the new townhouses that will replace the almost Soviet-style block structures.

As much as 20% of the $50-million overall price tag is set aside for efforts to better the lives of the project’s residents. Among the components being considered is a school-based, anti-gang campaign that has seen successes elsewhere on the Eastside. As many as six street gangs are responsible for much of Pico-Aliso’s violent crime, which is 4 1/2 times higher than the national average and much higher than the city average.

Other social programs include a literacy campaign among Pico-Aliso residents, who have a high dropout rate among their youths; a job apprenticeship program involving trade unions and local job-training officials in which 40 “at-risk” youths will be hired; day care and expanded recreational facilities to complement the area’s sports facilities offered by the city and the Dolores Mission Roman Catholic Church.

There is even talk of building a Los Angeles police substation in the reconstituted housing project to discourage crime.

It’s a tall order to reshape Pico-Aliso, but many think it’s doable. Henry Cisneros, secretary of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development sees the $50-million HUD grant for the plan as a crucial part of the federal government’s strategy to re-energize Los Angeles and other urban centers across the United States.

“We’re trying to make some dramatic changes,” Cisneros said. “In Los Angeles, [Pico-Aliso is] where we’re doing one of these major redevelopments [to] reshape it.”

Cisneros’ top assistant for public housing, Kevin Marchman, goes further, saying, “Pico-Aliso is leading the way in providing thoughtful things that are necessary to create a strong community.”

There are similar projects under way across the country, but only a handful have the Pico-Aliso plan’s wide-ranging goals of going beyond the bricks and mortars of construction work, Marchman says.

Bob Dole, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, believes that federal aid to improve public housing projects is a waste of time. He recently called such housing the “last bastions of socialism.”

To Pico-Aliso residents, it’s about time anybody did something to replace the units, many of them built in 1940.

Plans call for the demolition of 577 apartments south of 1st Street--in the Pico Gardens and the Aliso Extension sections of Pico-Aliso--and the construction of 440 townhouses for eligible low-income families and senior citizens.

In another move to signal something new and different, 60 of the units will be up for sale. According to some, that’s a crazy idea. “Who’d want to buy there?” they argue.

Nevertheless, officials hope that the construction will spur interest in the for-sale units from anyone looking to buy affordable housing or wanting a stake in the Pico-Aliso area. Suggested prices, for the moment, range from $110,000 to $140,000.

The housing project north of 1st Street, with 700 units, is not part of the construction work. But officials hope that more federal funds may become available to rehabilitate that portion, too.

The relocation of residents is set to begin in July, and the demolition should begin by November.

Construction, scheduled to take about three years, should begin by April.

“When they are completed, these units should be very nice,” says Jose Soto, a longtime Pico-Aliso resident and president of its residents advisory council.

Many of the units aren’t big enough and lack many of the basics, including cabinet and closet space. There isn’t enough parking. None of the units have showers, leaving residents to resort to putting buckets in their tubs for shower-like baths.

And with the gangs ever present, security measures simply aren’t adequate.

But one landmark long associated with L.A. public housing will disappear with the construction--the ubiquitous clothesline. Each new townhouse will have a washer and dryer. They’ll have many modern conveniences but not all of them--no air conditioning and, for the moment, no cable TV.

The rent for the townhouses will be the same as it is for the units they replace: 30% of a tenant’s adjusted gross income. In most cases, that comes to a monthly rent of $150 to $250.

In addition to the social agenda, there is another unique aspect to the Pico-Aliso plan: The residents are being listened to. Gone are the days when community objections were ignored and the public works pushed through, as was the case when five freeways were built through long-established Eastside neighborhoods in the 1950s and early ‘60s.

Those in charge of the work have those experiences in mind as they have listened to residents’ concerns and wishes.

“The architectural and physical planning is taking a back seat to other needs,” said principal architect Ted T. Tanaka, who has held numerous meetings with Pico-Aliso residents. “I ask, ‘What do you want?’ ‘What do you want in this community?’ The community input here is crucial.”

Eastside Councilman Richard Alatorre, in whose district the project is located, said: “Times have changed. What agencies of government were able to get away before they cannot get away with now.”

The idea that there is more afoot than just the building of townhouses is underlined by the flurry of meetings that have taken place in recent months. At such meetings, activists and professionals rarely talk about the construction itself.

Instead, they strategize over social needs and the best way to deal with them once the townhouses are built.

At one meeting at nearby Roosevelt High School, Maria Figueroa, the director of an East L.A. anti-gang program, and Gus Frias of the Los Angeles County Department of Education dominated the discussion as they talked about past mistakes in dealing with the gangs.

Frias said that when the Maravilla county housing project in East L.A. was rebuilt in the early 1970s, no measures were proposed to deal with the gangs that considered Maravilla part of their turf. As a result, “you had new housing but the same old gang problems,” Frias explained.

Figueroa said her GRIP program, which stands for Gang Risk Intervention Pilot program, offers a wide range of school-based programs--among them parenting classes, conflict resolution, recreation and field trips--that can work in Pico-Aliso if aggressively pursued.

“We need to come together for our communities,” she said.

One question remains over funding for these social programs. Although millions are earmarked for nonconstruction uses, some fear that the funds could dry up with construction costs overruns.

Mendoza, the director of the city Housing Authority’s urban revitalization program, promises to go to the Los Angeles community development bank and other sources “to try to make up for any shortfalls [of funds]” that might occur. “The social programs are just as important as rebuilding Pico-Aliso.”

The reshaping of Pico-Aliso, however, is not without its critics.

“They just lie to us,” says Pico-Aliso resident Gabriela “Gabby” Castillo, who says Housing Authority officials can’t be trusted.

As proof, Castillo and others point to an aborted attempt this year to displace them. In January, officials approached 36 families, including Castillo’s, with plans to move them in the first phase of a relocation effort for the demolition of three buildings. Officials said their moving was necessary to enlarge the nearby park.

Castillo and others objected, saying they had been given only two months’ notice to vacate. As the controversy grew and Castillo and her neighbors gathered support, the Housing Authority backed down, saying they didn’t have to move.

Plans for a larger park didn’t seem so necessary, officials concluded.

Mendoza has devised a new plan, promising to first move residents who voluntarily agreed to relocate. Those residents, more than 240, will receive federal rent subsidies and have the first option of returning. Of those 240, 90 have said they don’t want to return.

Castillo contends that the construction is really an effort to get rid of many poor residents, noting that the Housing Authority won’t guarantee that all of the displaced Pico-Aliso folks will be able to return once the townhouses are finished.

Knowing that only two-thirds of the units demolished will be replaced, Castillo charges that officials are overly eager to offer federal housing assistance subsidies--known as Section 8 payments--so that residents won’t want to return to the new townhouses. [Section 8 supplements a low-income tenant’s ability to pay market-value rent.]

“Even if they can’t guarantee everybody a new [townhouse], they should at least be truthful when we ask questions,” Castillo says.

Mendoza says he is trying to be as fair as possible to those who want to return.

But when a reporter asked him why some residents couldn’t return in the same sequence in which they were moved out, Mendoza seemed at a loss to explain his phased relocation program. He later admitted that it still needed some work.

Also vexing Mendoza and other officials is senior-citizen housing. Virtually all Pico-Aliso residents queried oppose it, explaining that most families do not want to be separated from an elderly relative who also lives at Pico-Aliso.

Despite tours of Maravilla and Casa TELACU, a senior-citizen housing area in East L.A., the seniors rejected a plan to segregate themselves in specially designed townhouses near First and Utah streets.

Tanaka is now trying to find a design that mixes single-bedroom units for seniors with larger units where other family members can live.

Most believe that the reshaping of Pico-Aliso is worthwhile.

Father Greg Boyle, a Jesuit priest whose work with gang members is legendary, says the reconstruction is long overdue, especially because it may mean jobs for as many as 40 of his homeboys in an apprenticeship program.

Security ranks as the residents’ biggest concern.

Tanaka is giving safety features a high priority. For example, the townhouses’ location will cut down walking distance between units and the parking lots.

Also, the townhouses will be gated with two patrolled entrances.

On a recent afternoon, several gang members lounged in front of a Pico-Aliso unit next to a freeway onramp and greeted with mixed emotions the thought of living in a townhouse.

“Hey, for my mom, she deserves to live in a really nice place,” one admitted gangbanger declared.

“Right on,” chimed in several of his buddies.

“But,” the first gang member suddenly realized, “you ever heard of a bato living in a fine place around here? Maybe someplace else but not around here.”

“Maybe you can’t handle it,” one in the group said, “but I could. I could real easy.”