At the Heart of a Turnaround
Two decades ago, the Buena Clinton neighborhood in Garden Grove was considered Orange County’s worst slum. Newspapers reported that drugs were sold openly from ice cream trucks, prostitutes hawked their services door-to-door and raw sewage flowed onto the streets.
On Saturday, the Eastside neighborhood was the scene of a block party celebrating a dramatic change. Complete with pony rides, face-painters, a mariachi band and carnival games, the festivities marked the four-year anniversary of the Buena Clinton Family Resource Center and the turnaround of the neighborhood’s once gang- and drug-plagued streets.
It also ushered in what many residents see as an exciting future: expansion plans aimed at improving even more lives.
“The place was a very challenging place to live,” said county Supervisor Lou Correa, who represents the area. “Now look around, look how clean it is. The community, the citizens, the private sector all worked together, and it’s worked here tremendously well.”
Nearly 3,700 people live in the square mile that makes up Buena Clinton, according to the 2000 U.S. census. Some 2,100 are children, and nearly two-thirds are foreign-born.
Millions of government dollars and tremendous city, police and nonprofit efforts such as community policing and refurbished housing have transformed the neighborhood into a safer place. The center, Correa said, is the anchor ensuring that such progress continues.
The facility, operated on about $160,000 in city funds annually, serves about 100 people each day, offering after-school homework help, parenting classes, English lessons and more. Teens mentor young children and volunteer to do office work. Scouting troops meet there.
Currently housed in a 1,000-square-foot trailer in the 12600 block of Sunswept Avenue, the center recently received a $2.45-million state grant to build a 6,200-square-foot facility at the same location.
Officials hope to break ground by the end of the year.
“This is just an exciting day,” said Gabriela O’Cadiz-Hernandez, the center’s director. “I love seeing the kids.”
Evelyn Trejos, 12, lives up the street from the center and helps younger children with their homework there every day after school. As the teen listened to two rappers perform at the block party, she noted that, in a remnant of the area’s past, some gang members still roam the neighborhood. So being inside after school helps keep her and her friends safe.
“It keeps you out of danger,” said the seventh-grader at Doig Intermediate School. “If you’re in here, you have an education.”
Mentoring the younger children makes her feel good, she added. “It’s cool helping them to grow up and to be somebody.”
Katia Bautista, a mother of three who lives across the street from the center, has taken English classes there and plans to take more.
“When anything is happening there,” she said, “I’m there.”
Her children have also benefited, she said, as have all of the neighborhood children.
“They keep the kids occupied, and away from the cholos in the area,” she said.
