Her Job’s Over, but Not Her Work

When they locked the credit union doors at the West Los Angeles Community Service Organization in Venice earlier this month, it sent sad signals to the poor of that Oakwood neighborhood.

It was not only the loss of much-needed financing for low-income families to buy cars and to see them through hard times, but it also represented the end of a chapter of activism rooted in 1960s social protest.

Flora Chavez, the program’s 81-year-old executive director, removed the agency’s sign from the gray one-story house it has occupied for more then 25 years. Inside, office walls carry faded city proclamations and dogeared photographs of protest marches, civil rights figures and former political leaders.

Word-of-mouth still draws a few new and old clients to the California Avenue building, where Chavez lives with a peppy 5-year-old girl whose mother left her under the elderly woman’s guardianship.

Chavez is not one to turn the needy away. With much of her agency’s operation shut down, Chavez finds time to counsel families on immigration matters, notarize documents, dig out information on jobs and offer tomatoes to the needy from her vegetable garden.

“I’m tired and old and I’d like to retire, but they won’t let me,” said Chavez, whose energy and efforts have kept the small agency afloat with help from volunteers.

But the closing of the credit union--the organization’s most prized operation--shows the end is near. Over the years, the credit union gave out 680 small loans totaling nearly $2 million. During its heyday, it had a small paid staff and volunteers, more than 400 members and assets of nearly $200,000. At its closing, assets totaled $105,000, which will be distributed among the 78 members.

“The active members are elderly and they want to retire,” Jan Owen, acting commissioner of the state’s Department of Financial Institutions, which oversees 213 state-chartered credit unions, said of the Venice agency. “Their assets are small and they truly do want to wind down. We have always been proud to have this institution as one of our licensees.”

But despite past success by Chavez--only two defaults on loans in more than 25 years--no outside credit union has expressed an interest in taking over the struggling neighborhood institution, said Owen.

City Councilwoman Ruth Galanter, whose district includes Venice, praised Chavez’s work.

“She is one of these local legends,” said Galanter. “A credit union is a constructive institution created by people who say, ‘Here is a problem, now let’s see what we can do to solve it ourselves.’ That is what distinguishes people who really make change from those who just grumble.”

Chavez has headed the organization’s Venice branch for most of the 33 years of its existence as part of a statewide Community Service Organization founded by the late Latino activist Anthony Rios in 1947.

About 10 years ago, Chavez’s West Los Angeles branch became embroiled in political and bureaucratic nightmares beyond her control when her small agency lost its city funding because of problems that the parent organization had with the Internal Revenue Service.

Many predicted the West Los Angeles chapter would fold then, but it didn’t.

“We had good people working with us and we continued to get things done,” said Chavez, a Social Security recipient who has worked without salary for 10 years. “It’s rewarding to help people who no one gives a damn about.”

Chavez is Anglo; her last name comes from her long marriage to Filaberto Chavez, who died three years ago. She was born in Pine Knot, Ky., but speaks with a Southwestern twang out of Albuquerque, N.M., where she was raised.

It was while in Albuquerque that she first participated in social protests, fighting to reduce the high infant mortality rate among the city’s poor. During World War II, her family moved to Southern California, where Chavez helped organize union workers at the Lockheed plant in Burbank.

When the NAACP needed marchers to protest racial discrimination, she was there. She hauled medical supplies to farm workers and marched with labor organizer Cesar Chavez.

Chavez is one of the first to admit that her memory isn’t as sharp as it used to be. But there are some moments that have remained in her thoughts: the opportunity to shake Martin Luther King Jr.’s hand, and the time Cesar Chavez used the family bathroom to freshen up before a meeting.

She met Community Service Organization founder Rios in the 1960s while registering Latinos to vote in the Venice area. He recruited her to the organization, and Chavez took the helm of the West Los Angeles branch when it was on the verge of collapse.

In addition to the credit union, the Community Service Organization offered an inexpensive food co-op and free legal and translation services.

“We never advertised; people found us,” said Jolene Fukushima, a former director of the chapter’s credit union.

They were people like Connie Bustamante, who used a $10,000 credit union loan to buy a car.

“I was surprised when I saw their office right there among the houses,” she said. “They knew everybody by name and treated you more like a friend.”

Despite disappointment at the closing, Chavez said she is looking ahead. She wants to visit family members and complete the task of caring for Lonni, the 5-year-old she has raised since she was an infant.

“I’ve always been a mother,” Chavez said. “A lot of people like dogs and cats, but with me it’s children. I’ve raised three daughters and I don’t know how many others along the way.

“Right now, that’s enough for me.”