Anti-poverty zone leaves out L.A.'s poorest

http://www.latimes.com/local/la-me-obama-garcetti-promise-zone-20140407,0,2833076.story



South L.A. leaders are stunned when a group led by an Obama fundraiser secures federal aid for Koreatown, Hollywood and Los Feliz, where the needs aren't as great.

Anti-poverty zone leaves out L.A.'s poorest
By Michael Finnegan, David Zahniser and Doug Smith
April 6, 2014, 8:15 p.m.

In January, President Obama announced a block-by-block approach to relieving poverty in Los Angeles. Federal money, he said, would pour into a newly created Promise Zone.

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Only those previously funded organizations were eligible to seek Promise Zone aid. In Los Angeles, there was only one such group: a nonprofit led by Dixon Slingerland, a major campaign fundraiser for Obama and frequent White House visitor.

Under rules set by the White House and federal agencies, Mayor Eric Garcetti's office, working with Slingerland's Youth Policy Institute, was required to draw the zone's boundaries around an area where the nonprofit already was focusing its federal grants — either Hollywood or the northeast San Fernando Valley.

The result was an anti-poverty zone that left out communities south of the 10 Freeway, including areas of chronic poverty that drew worldwide attention after the 1965 and 1992 riots. Neighborhoods around Watts have a poverty rate 21% higher than communities within the Promise Zone, according to a Times analysis of U.S. Census Bureau data. Neighborhoods east of USC have a poverty rate 39% higher.