5 Harbor-Area Neighborhoods Added to Recovery Project

Los Angeles Mayor Richard Riordan and Councilman Rudy Svorinich Jr. announced Wednesday that five communities in the harbor area will be added to the citywide Neighborhood Recovery Project, a program that will address issues ranging from crime to abandoned buildings and safety.

Nearly 20 neighborhoods, including Hollywood’s Yucca Corridor, Hyde Park and Boyle Heights, have been added to the 3-year-old program that assigns a task force to the neighborhood to evaluate its problems.

City officials announced the addition of San Pedro, Harbor Gateway, Harbor City, Wilmington and Hickory/Santa Ana to the recovery project during a community meeting at the Wilmington Community Building.

“This neighborhood recovery project will make a tremendous difference for our harbor-area community,” Riordan said. “It will bring together residents, police officers and city officials to identify the problems facing these neighborhoods.”

The program, headed by the Los Angeles Housing Department, targets neighborhoods that have deteriorated and suffer from drug and gang problems.

Program director Samuel Luna said the $1-million effort, funded by the Community Development Block Grant and a low-interest housing department loan for low-income buyers, sets up projects for graffiti and neighborhood cleanup, repaving of streets and sidewalks and repair of abandoned buildings and tries to bring community-based policing into each neighborhood.

Luna said the program has been successful in reducing drug traffic in the Yucca Corridor by arranging neighborhood marches and making one-way streets in the neighborhood. He said the agency expects the same success in the harbor area.

Residents who attended the meeting were pleased that the city has decided to spend money on the blighted neighborhoods near the Port of Los Angeles, which residents feel the city often neglects.