[California] Poverty soaring in area of Escondido

from Sign On San Diego

Mostly Latino immigrants live in crowded apartments
By Booyeon Lee
UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER

ESCONDIDO – A neighborhood just north of downtown is an island of mostly poor immigrants who live in crowded apartments, according to a city-commissioned report released yesterday.

The study, prepared by the National Latino Research Center at California State University San Marcos, found that the area languishes under the fastest-growing poverty rate in the state. About 80 percent of the residents never attended college, and more than half do not speak English.

The poorest section is near Grant Middle School, where the median household income is $17,000, less than half of the city's median household income.

“They are poor, disenfranchised Latino immigrants,” said Arcela Nuñez-Alvarez, interim director of the research center. “The general perception is that they don't care about their children's education and they are not invested in the community. But the people we talked to want to take ownership of their community to address some serious challenges they are facing.”

Seven years ago, Escondido began pouring money into one of its most troubled neighborhoods, which is bordered by Ash Street, Lincoln Avenue, Valley Parkway and Centre City Parkway, naming it Mission Park. The 200 residents interviewed for the study had never heard the name.

The city has spent about $9 million on affordable-housing projects, child-care subsidies, after-school programs and a 4.5-acre park scheduled to open in October, according to the city's housing and neighborhood services division.

“We've made a lot of physical improvements,” said Jerry Van Leeuwen, the city's director of housing and neighborhood services. “But we haven't been interested enough in the social fabric of that neighborhood.”

So the city spent an additional $10,000 on the study, which questioned residents on a range of issues, from concerns about housing and crime to availability of social services.

Students at the university research center who did the interviewing compared the neighborhood to some in Latin America where multiple families live in small apartments, Nuñez-Alvarez said.

“Many of these people leave the country of their origin for economic reasons,” she said. “Students questioned how much immigrant families are really moving up when they arrive here to share two-bedroom apartments with three other families.”

The population of Mission Park has increased by more than 6,000, to 16,500, over the past five years. About 80 percent are Latino. Van Leeuwen said the increase was alarming because the number of housing units has remained the same.

Nuñez-Alvarez said this means multiple families are squeezing into one-and two-bedroom apartments because for many of them the cost of rent is about 75 percent of their monthly income.

She characterized Mission Park as the “first stop” for Mexican immigrants, many of whom are families of mixed legal status, where children are U.S.-born and the parents are not.

The neighborhood has become a popular starting point for immigrants because of its large stock of apartments built in the 1960s. Building standards were lax back then, Van Leeuwen said, and developers were allowed to build more apartments than what would be permissible today.

The study also found that 67 percent of the respondents were “very concerned” about crime. In an average month, between June 2003 and June 2005, 65 burglaries, thefts, homicides, rapes or robberies were reported in Mission Park.

The actual number of crimes is probably higher, Nuñez-Alvarez said.

“Many of these crimes are gang-related, and residents told us they do not report some of them for fear of retribution,” she said.

Many respondents said they want to see Grant Middle School used as a recreational facility for families, with access to reading materials and other educational resources to help parents create a better learning environment for their children.