Group pins hopes on new name

Rebuffed by donors and deprived of city funds, organizers of LovedOnes of Homicide Victims made a reluctant change: They dropped”homicide” from the organization’s name.

Homicide “is not a cause that people want to align themselveswith,” explained the Rev. Ferroll Robins, the South Los Angelesagency’s director. “It is something no one wants to think about.”

Homicide rates in the Los Angeles Police Department’s SouthBureau, which stretches from Watts to Crenshaw, are roughly six timesthe national average. Nearly half of all homicides in Californiaoccur in Los Angeles County.

The fact that a nonprofit agency specializing in treating thepsychological aftermath of those killings lacks funds “really angersme,” said Deputy Chief Earl Paysinger of the South Bureau.

Paysinger called the agency “unique in terms of grass-rootsorganizations.” If it were to close, “it would not be a void. Itwould be an abyss.”

State and local government budget problems are putting the squeezeon many nonprofit agencies. But advocates for Loved Ones say itsproblems go beyond tight budgets. They say Los Angeles’ murderproblem is losing out to other political priorities and more popularcauses.

“Homicide is not fashionable. It is not the popular cause, thecause du jour,” said Inglewood Police Chief Ronald Banks, chairman ofLoved Ones’ board.

For nearly two decades, Loved Ones has provided counseling andsupport to about 200 people a year who are grief-stricken after ahomicide -- mostly street murders, many of them gang-related. Itserves the city’s most violent neighborhoods, and city and countyprosecutors use it regularly.

“It’s the first place I send my victims,” said Loretta Denman,victim services representative for Los Angeles County Dist. Atty.Steve Cooley.

But Loved Ones now gets no city funding and receives only threeprivate grants. It depends mostly on a modest grant awarded by stateofficials out of the annual $40-million federal Victims of Crime Actfund. The grant program ends this year and might not be renewed.

As it is, the grant money is distributed in equal portions aroundthe state, and Loved Ones gets no more than agencies in such countiesas Napa and Shasta, which serve communities with far less violentcrime.

Loved Ones’ operational budget has since shrunk from about$180,000 a year to about $125,000. The agency also receives about$46,000 in partial government reimbursement for psychologists’ fees.

The city gave the group $67,000 last year. But Loved Ones nolonger measures up to other needy agencies, said Manet Milner,director of human services for Los Angeles. Milner said applicantsare evaluated in part on how well they fit the mission of the grants,which are weighted toward areas of higher poverty and target the needfor economic and social development and housing.

Loved Ones was ranked high enough in past years to qualify for agrant. But in the most recent cycle, the bar was higher, and theagency didn’t meet the new cut-off point, Milner said.

For Milner, the decision to end funding was personally difficult.Her son was murdered in 1990 at the age of 22.

“I’ve been through it,” she said. “It never ends.”

Most of the $40 million in federal funding for victims programs inCalifornia is restricted to two uses: salaries for victimrepresentatives -- who are assigned statewide in proportion to crimenumbers -- and services for victims of domestic violence, child abuseor sex abuse.

What’s left for other organizations such as Loved Ones is lessthan $1 million. The state Office of Emergency Services divides thatfunding equally among eight organizations, which include agencies inOrange, Napa and Shasta counties and two in Los Angeles County. Oneof those in L.A. County is a gay and lesbian service group. The otheris Loved Ones.

Ann Mizoguchi, chief of the victims services branch in EmergencyServices, said the distribution takes into account the greater numberof other victims’ representatives in Los Angeles County.

It also serves to ensure that rural areas are not overlooked,protecting funding for such programs as the Family Service Agency ofShasta County, said Melissa Harris, the agency’s executive director.She acknowledged that her county’s crime rates are much lower thanLos Angeles’.

“If they just looked at numbers, no money would ever come to acounty like this,” Harris said.

That approach outrages some victim advocates in Los Angeles.

“Who lives in Shasta County? Penguins? How many drive-by shootingsdo they have?” asked Norma Hawkins, a Lynwood activist and formerLoved Ones client who has lost two sons in drive-by shootings.

Hawkins contends that society’s failure to give priority tohomicide over other crimes hampers fundraising to battle streetviolence in South L.A.

Some critics question the types of crimes included in the federalfunding scheme. Los Angeles-style violence -- chiefly street fightsand gang warfare -- is far more lethal than domestic violence, sexcrimes or child abuse.

Such crimes account for many nonfatal assaults. But among murders,domestic violence accounted for only 6% in Los Angeles in 2003. Arecent state study concluded that, over two decades, just 5% ofCalifornia murders were related to domestic violence. Only 1% wererelated to rape.

Faced with the possibility of further cuts, Loved Ones has triedanother route: private fundraising.

But here, too, it has met difficulties. Most of its applicationsfor private funding have been rejected. Frustrated, Robins, who isalso an LAPD chaplain, took the advice she had quietly been given inthe past by expert fundraisers, removing “homicide” from the namelast year. She thought it would give Loved Ones a fighting chancenext to mainstream causes, such as child abuse.

Homicide “made people very uncomfortable,” she said. “We wouldleave a message, and the person at the other end of the phone wouldget real quiet.”

But to some longtime supporters, the move was a sad commentary.

“Everybody wants it nice, warm and fuzzy. And if it’s not, theydon’t want to deal with it,” said South L.A. activist CharlotteAustin-Jordan, a former client of Loved Ones who has lost a daughterand a son to homi- cide.

To help close the funding gap, City Councilman Martin Ludlow saidhe would seek new funding for the agency, which is in his district.”This is clearly a tragedy -- that an agency slipped through thecracks,” he said.

In its search for private funding, Loved Ones has not struck outcompletely. Kaiser Permanente has provided $5,000 and NorthropGrumman $10,000. A spokesman for Northrop said Loved Ones matched thecompany’s goal of supporting very small, grass-roots, urban LosAngeles groups.

But the last resort -- individual donors -- has beendisappointing. To date, the largest such donor has been ChristopherDarden, a prosecutor in the O.J. Simpson case now in privatepractice. Darden, a former Loved Ones board member, gave $10,000 tothe group years ago.

Darden attributes Loved Ones’ problems in netting other donors tosqueamishness. Murder “is a very morbid topic. It has a way of makingpeople uncomfortable,” he said.

High-profile cases that highlight domestic violence such as NicoleSimpson’s murder mobilize the public, he said. “But if it’sgang-related, nobody cares about it. Nobody cares.”

Loved Ones “is such a necessary program,” he said. “It isdepressing to think the community won’t support it.”