Workshop Seeks to Empower Neighborhoods

Rosa Relado, a 63-year-old resident of a crime-ravaged neighborhood, sat in the auditorium at the Pacoima Boys & Girls Club, watching a slide show charting something she’s all too familiar with: gang-related homicides.

Normally, she’s not the activist type who rushes off to attend workshops on urban violence. She came Saturday for the sake of her one and only grandson, 6-year-old Luis, a happy child with few worries. Relado hoped to discover how she could help keep him that way.

“I want to learn how to save him from all that violence,” she said, emphasizing her determination by shaking her fist.

On Saturday, Relado and about 30 others attended a conference called “Breaking the Link Between Over-concentration of Alcohol & Tobacco and Poverty & Crime.” Sponsored by the San Fernando Alcohol, Tobacco and Other Drug Prevention Coalition, and Pueblo Y Salud Inc., a nonprofit agency specializing in drug prevention, the conference focused on finding ways to empower communities dealing with drug abuse and gang violence.

The site of the conference was not haphazard. There are more liquor stores in Pacoima than anywhere in the Valley, said Gerardo Guzman, an organizer with Pueblo Y Salud.

“We feel there is a problem with alcohol and drug abuse in Pacoima,” he said.

A focus of the conference was a five-year study of gang killings in Los Angeles.

The study by Dr. Demetrios Kyriacou, an assistant professor at the UCLA School of Medicine, found a correlation between the unemployment rate and gang-related homicides. When unemployment rises, he discovered, the number of homicides rise. When unemployment drops, the number of homicides falls.

Kyriacou said there might be other factors at work as well. “You can never say you’re 100% sure about something like this, but the numbers are what they are,” he said. “And they’re pretty convincing.”

Kyriacou suggested that local governments and community groups try to create jobs for young males, who constitute a majority of the victims and perpetrators of gang-related homicides.

Guzman said that although most residents may not be able to help create jobs, there are other ways that they can help, such as creating community-watch groups.

Guzman also said residents interested in making their communities better should support a city ordinance that prohibits from school zones billboards advertising alcohol, tobacco and phone sex.

“A lot of this sounds simple but how often does anyone actually do anything about it?” Guzman asked. “People have to start taking responsibility for these things.”

That is exactly what Relado was doing as she listened to a speaker describe how to start a neighborhood-watch group.

“My grandson is too young to help himself,” she said. “I’m here so he doesn’t have to worry about these things.”