Two Worlds in One City

To the north of Shaw Avenue, smooth sidewalks, manicured lawns and an abundance of commercial enterprise signal upward mobility and wealth.

In much of the city’s south, however, broken curbs, garbage-strewn vacant lots and an ever-present cluster of vagrants loitering in the drab downtown tell a different story.

“Fresno south of Shaw Avenue is one world. Fresno north of Shaw Avenue is another world,” said the Rev. Paul L. Binion II, whose Fresno Westside Church of God is in an area below Shaw that only recently got a supermarket and still has no bank or credit union.

“I’ve called it ‘A Tale of Two Cities,’ ” said Mayor Alan Autry, adding that “a socioeconomic wall” exists at Shaw.

That Fresno has a gaping social and economic divide is no surprise to those who live here. Relying on a largely agrarian economy -- prunes and almonds are among the region’s most prominent crops -- the city has attracted workers who typically toil in low-paying seasonal jobs. During the off-season many agricultural workers become unemployed or must compete for scarce service industry jobs.

But when the Washington-based Brookings Institution published a report last year placing Fresno first among American cities with the most concentrated level of poverty, the news gave many city leaders and social activists an unwelcome jolt.

For those who have been fighting against poverty for decades, the study sounded like a much-needed wake-up call.

“It finally gave recognition where necessary to validate what we’ve been talking about,” said Councilwoman Cynthia Sterling. She represents District 3, which is home to the heaviest concentration of poor and where two-thirds of the 70,000 residents are unemployed. “No one wanted to pay attention before.”

Drawing on the 2000 census, the Brookings report examined extremely poor neighborhoods with high crime, poor housing and a lack of stable jobs and good schools in 50 of America’s largest cities.

Fresno, population 427,660, was placed ahead of New Orleans; Louisville, Ky.; and Miami as a city where the highest concentration of the most economically vulnerable citizens live in poverty. Long Beach ranked sixth, Los Angeles 14th.

The irony is that the 400-mile-long Central Valley, where Fresno sits, is flush with rich farmland that produces at least one-fourth of the nation’s food. But the low wages of farm work are reflected in the conditions of Fresno’s south.

This is where newly arrived immigrants have historically been able to afford to live. According to recent census figures, 11.2% of the city’s population is Asian, mostly Hmong, some of them recently arrived. Latinos represent 39.9% of the city, whites 50.2% and African Americans 8.4%. The total is more than 100 because the census allows people to identify themselves as of more than one race or ethnicity.

Decades-old scams in which developers undermined local zoning and environmental laws by buying off politicians also kept much of the job creation, new housing and business enterprises in the city’s affluent north, local officials said. An FBI investigation in the 1990s landed several local politicians, developers and lobbyists behind bars on fraud and corruption charges.

“It’s not something we’re proud of,” Autry said. “But we have to be reminded of where we never want to go again.”

The reality of poverty is not new, but the kinds of people seeking help from nonprofit organizations and government have changed.

“It’s no longer the homeless man standing on the street corner with a sign asking for food,” said Sarah Reyes, chief executive of the Community Food Banks. “It’s families with two working people.”

Reyes, a former assemblywoman, said that one in two children go to school hungry in Fresno and that at least 90% of students in the Fresno Unified School District are enrolled in the free meal program.

Among the responses to Fresno’s poverty is the Village of Hope, a collection of wooden tool sheds in a vacant lot run by Poverello House, a neighborhood soup kitchen. There’s no plumbing, but the sheds provide the homeless a free place to sleep. They are also an upgrade compared with the village’s previous shelters: tents.

No drugs or alcohol is allowed, and tenants must vacate the premises during the day to work or seek work.

Don Harmon and his fiancee, LaRissa LePage, used to live in a truck. Now they make their home at the Village of Hope.

Harmon, 36, a former convict and recovering meth addict, cannot afford to rent on his salary from part-time construction work. He and LePage survive on free meals from Poverello House, which serves about 1,000 hot meals a day.

“We don’t ask you your name. We don’t ask you anything,” said Jim Connell, executive director of Poverello House. “What we’ve attempted to do is provide a place for people to come where they don’t have to jump through any hoops.”

Harmon acknowledged that, if not for the free meals, “I would be recycling from a Dumpster to buy something to eat.”

LePage, 20, said she has been trying to find work for months, to no avail.

“It’s hard to find a job, because I’m young and I don’t have any experience,” said LePage, a high school dropout who said she would welcome the opportunity to return to the classroom.

Fresno’s downtown business district, where most government and private social services agencies are located, is a natural magnet for the needy.

On any given day, throngs of homeless people mill around on street corners or near the Fresno Rescue Mission. Some lounge on patches of grass in an empty lot. Others perch listlessly on broken curbs, chins resting on embraced knees. The Rev. Larry J. Arce, the mission’s director, has watched the crowds swell in recent years. Most disturbing to him is that many of those seeking free meals -- the shelter served 365,000 of them last year -- and use of the facility’s 320 beds are no longer just drug addicts and alcoholics.

“Minimum wage, or a fixed income, cause [the working poor] to come here, because they can’t afford to pay rent,” Arce said.

As dusk begins to fall, homeless people use plastic bags to erect makeshift shelters along the front wall of the mission, while others hunker down on cardboard mattresses under newspaper blankets. They are the unlucky ones, who failed to secure one of the shelter’s beds.

Oved and Esther Garcia bounced from one relative to another, then lived for two days on the street with their 8-month-old daughter, Genesis, before landing at an emergency family center run by the mission.

Oved Garcia, 22, works as a security guard but cannot afford rent on his $8-an-hour salary. Most habitable one-room apartments cost more than $400, community leaders said.

“We hope it’s going to turn around,” said Esther Garcia, 18. “We hope in the future to get a home.”

But with the median family income in Fresno estimated at $35,892 a year and home prices averaging $225,000, homeownership is unrealistic for most residents here.

Families are typically allowed to remain at the mission’s family shelter for 21 days. The Colby family is a recent arrival.

A back injury 12 years ago forced Jim Colby to quit his job maintaining industrial plant machinery and to apply for disability, he said. A dispute with his landlord ultimately got Colby and his wife, Loren, evicted from their central Fresno apartment.

They moved in with relatives, then with friends, then to the shelter. Fresno County pays Loren Colby to baby-sit her 9-month-old grandson, Eli, while the baby’s 16-year-old mother goes to school.

“It is by no means easy,” said Jim Colby, who added that he made about $125,000 a year at the height of his career. Now, his disability payments, combined with his wife’s salary, barely bring in $30,000 annually. “We go out daily looking for assistance, looking for anything to try and get back to a normal life.”

Like many cities in the Central Valley, Fresno is experiencing a brain drain, with many potential civic and business leaders leaving town. And for those who do decide to stay put, few choose to stick around south of Shaw Avenue.

Mayor Autry says his administration is trying to slow what city officials call the “strain and drain to the north” side of the city.

Under a $45-million initiative called “No Neighborhood Left Behind,” 71 depressed Fresno neighborhoods are getting face-lifts. The six-year beautification project, launched last year, includes installing new sidewalks, curbs and gutters; clearing garbage; and erasing graffiti.

A plan has been initiated to steer new construction and development to south Fresno. Businesses are also being given subsidies to train and hire young adults. And $3.5 million in state and federal grants is being used to help turn renters into home buyers.

The Fresno West Coalition for Economic Development, a grass-roots nonprofit group, offers job training and courses in home-buying for people like Donyell Hatter.

A few years ago, Hatter was leading a life of drug addiction, failing to hold even temporary handyman jobs.

The agency’s outreach team helped him write his resume, drove him to job interviews and got him enrolled in a construction course.

“Every time I come by, they offer me another opportunity,” said Hatter, 30, the father of two toddlers, who recently graduated from the construction course and has been able to land jobs through his membership in the carpenters union. “I really don’t know where my life would have been.”

Some Fresno residents are attacking poverty on their own.

Phillip Rivera and his wife, Patricia, have made it their mission to nourish the body and soul of the economically challenged.

Every Wednesday after a session of proselytizing and prayer, the Riveras serve 85 to 150 homemade meals to hungry people who gather in picturesque Roeding Park.

Volunteers help dish out fried chicken, beef stew, meatloaf, pasta, goulash or enchiladas.

“Most of us are just a check or two away from being homeless,” said Phillip Rivera, who represents Fresno/Calwa Community Outreach Services and Bread of Life Ministries. “Even if you get social services or anything like that, it takes time to get into the program. So what do you do in between that time?”

The motto of Rivera’s organization is “The Best Is Yet to Come,” but he acknowledges that prospects for Fresno’s poor remain uncertain.

“It’s getting worse for families,” he said.