Real-Life Fallout Far From Ground Zero

From its storefront headquarters on a rough-and-tumble strip of Hawthorne Boulevard in Lennox, St. Margaret’s Center has become another focal point of the fallout from the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

Many of the working poor, largely Latino immigrants who live in the unincorporated community or in neighboring Hawthorne or Inglewood have lost their jobs or had their hours slashed in the slowdown at Los Angeles International Airport and related industries.

They are turning more frequently to St. Margaret’s, a nonsectarian program of Catholic Charities of Los Angeles, for staples from its food bank, free second-hand clothing and medical services. Some receive vouchers for emergency housing and help with utility bills. English and citizenship classes also are taught there.

“Their struggle to survive, to keep a roof over their children’s heads and food on the table, has become a home-front casualty of a war that flickers daily on TV screens,” said Mary Agnes Erlandson, director of St. Margaret’s since it opened in 1987.

Soon after the layoffs, St. Margaret’s appointment slots for families to visit the food bank began to fill up earlier and earlier to accommodate 150 to 200 families a week, who now sometimes experience delays in getting their monthly allotment of groceries. Last fiscal year, an estimated 13,000 low-income residents of the neighborhoods around LAX received various services, and officials expect to serve at least an additional 1,000 during the current budget year, which ends June 30.

However, St. Margaret’s has its own struggle: trying to help increasing numbers of families just as the souring economy has cut into charitable donations. As a result, its leaders say they are having a hard time finding money for the annual Christmas party for youngsters and the 2,000 or more new toys needed to ensure each child will have two gifts to open on Christmas Day.

Throughout its warren of rooms and small offices, its food bank and its recently refurbished thrift shop, St. Margaret’s offers a street-level perspective on terrorism’s aftermath, glimpses into already difficult lives further fractured when low-paying jobs--an estimated 10,000 at the airport alone--vanished in the wake of the terrorist attacks, the resulting economic slowdown and changes in security policies.

‘A Lot Less Money to Send to the Children’

Many of St. Margaret’s clients had until recently worked at airport-area hotels or in terminal eateries or gift shops, or they had cleaned the airplanes, made food for the in-flight meals or serviced the rental cars.

Before the attacks, Elder Rosales of Lennox worked 80 hours a week at McDonald’s restaurants in two LAX terminals. His wife worked 40 hours at another McDonald’s nearby so the couple could send money back to their four children in Guatemala. With his hours now cut in half, Rosales, who is enrolled in English classes at the center, said in Spanish, “There is a lot less money to send to the children.”

An Inglewood woman, who asked to be identified only by her first name, Martha, said she lost her full-time job making airline meals, leaving only the wages of her husband, who has 10 years’ seniority with the same company, to support the family of four.

“This causes troubles for my daughters,” Martha said in Spanish, “because when there is an activity at school that requires money, we can’t pay.”

There are other frustrations as well.

“I like to work, but I can’t find any job. I go to employment agencies, but nobody calls me back,” said Martha, who recently began English classes at the center.

Others had held jobs that were outside the tourism industry but evaporated when its stumble dragged down the economy of surrounding neighborhoods.

Maria Perez of Inglewood said she started to worry when the local painting contractor her husband worked for experienced a recent drop in business.

Soon, he was laid off, and the family of five is trying to get by on the money Perez makes baby-sitting for neighbors while her husband searches for work. They started selling Popsicles from a street cart, and the family, who had previously sought help from St. Margaret’s, recently returned to sign up for once-monthly free groceries at the center’s food bank.

Visiting the center recently with her three small charges tucked into a double stroller, Perez said she was used to short periods of hardship when rainy weather kept her husband from outdoor painting jobs.

“But now there is no rain, and still there is no work,” she said in Spanish.

Erlandson said many of the center’s clients find work again, but they are ill-equipped to manage on their own during the lag time. The director hopes the center itself will find its way through a difficult time.

‘People Are Telling Us They’re Just Tapped Out’

Already grappling with a 25% cut in United Way funding, Erlandson worries that donations from individuals and businesses will fall short during the crucial holiday and year-end period. (The nonprofit center also receives some government and private foundation grants.)

“A lot of that giving is done during the holidays, so we won’t really know until a little later,” Erlandson said, “‘but people already are telling us they’re just tapped out.”

She is hoping that proceeds from the center’s expanded thrift store next door--given last summer by the Sisters of St. Joseph of Carondelet, who had founded the shop 10 years ago--will help fill the gap. But the thrift store, which was dedicated with a blessing service on Saturday, also provides clothing and household items free to especially needy clients.

A mobile clinic from Robert F. Kennedy Medical Center in Hawthorne provides free medical services at the center three days a week, and St. Margaret’s also offers low-cost immigration services, a rent-assistance program funded by the cities of Hawthorne and Inglewood and citizenship services.

Last year, its paid staff of three (including Erlandson) and some 40 volunteers worked toward their goal of giving clients--from 400 to 600 a week--”the concrete help they need to stabilize their lives and to become productive, contributing members of society.”

The first big test of the center’s ability to handle its community’s increased needs looms with the annual Christmas party, scheduled for Dec. 20 at Centinela Hospital Medical Center in Inglewood, which began hosting the event several years ago.

Erlandson said the center is trying to accommodate 350 families this year--50 more than previously--because of the greater numbers of needy people.

During the daylong program in the hospital’s auditorium, families arrive by appointment. While the children attend the party, watching the live entertainment and getting their faces painted, the parents are escorted to rooms of toys sorted by age, from infant to 13 years, and can select two toys per child.

The gifts are then wrapped and given to the parents to take home to give to their youngsters themselves on Christmas Day. Each family also leaves with a $25 supermarket certificate to buy groceries for a holiday meal.

Party Organizers Seek Donations of Cash, Toys

Although the hospital underwrites most of the cost of the party itself, organizers are worried about raising enough donations of cash and new toys.

“I’m finding dead ends everywhere,” Lorna Price, a business development coordinator for the hospital, said of the difficulties of raising money for this year’s party in the face of the tanking economy.

But, added Price, who oversees the party, “We’re going for it.

“When I think about these families and these children, I know we don’t have a choice. We are going to do this.”

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St. Margaret’s Center is at 10505 Hawthorne Blvd., Lennox. Telephone: (310) 672-2208.