Imagine Life Without Gangs : Not very likely, of course; but funding Hope in Youth can help

With their vote, the Los Angeles County supervisors can provide the final push that gets an important anti-gang program rolling. Given this city’s ever-worsening youth gang problem--hundreds of gangs with thousands of members, some of the worst of whom seem to be targeting police officers in shooting attacks--it’s about time.

The Board of Supervisors should approve the requested $2.9 million in county funds for Hope in Youth, a campaign created by church leaders from throughout the county, including some from the most gang-infested neighborhoods in East and South-Central Los Angeles and the Pomona and San Fernando valleys.

Hope in Youth is designed to divert to constructive lives those youngsters who are attracted to gang activities yet are mere hangers-on rather than deeply entrenched members; that description may encompass 80% of the young people fraternizing with gangs.

Hope in Youth would put teams of gang experts, social workers and teachers to work helping the “wanna-bes” overcome the school, job or family problems that so often lead to hard-core gang membership. (Hardened members, who most experts agree commit most of the serious gang crimes, will be left to the police and courts.)

The church leaders who first came up with this eminently sensible proposal, and have spent almost $1 million of their own organizations’ money to get it off the ground, have been trying to get financial help from state and local governments for more than a year. Unfortunately they got caught in a bureaucratic Alphonse-and-Gaston routine, with each level of government insisting that the other had to fund the program first.

The logjam was finally broken when newly elected Los Angeles Mayor Richard Riordan agreed to hand over the city’s $2.5-million share. Shortly thereafter, Gov. Pete Wilson signed off on $2.4 million from the state.

Once the county money is approved, Hope in Youth can start hiring and training its gang workers, with the goal of getting them on the streets by January. It won’t be any too soon.