Quiet Heroics : Shalimar Street Resident Organized Neighbors to Make Community Safer

COSTA MESA —  Four years ago, Maria Alvarez was a shaken woman.

Drug peddlers and gang members had taken over her west Costa Mesa neighborhood.

The 5-foot-3 single mother of four knew she had to act.

So she summoned her courage and walked from her Shalimar Street apartment to confront a group of 40 gang members. She was alone and afraid.

They told her in no uncertain terms that she had better watch out because they knew where she and her children lived. If she caused any problems, they would get her.

But Alvarez, 55, won the battle for her ‘hood. Tired of living in fear, she joined with her neighbors and formed a community coalition at her church to take back their streets.

On Monday, Alvarez received a leadership award from a coalition of Orange County community organizations known as Orange County Together.

Alvarez, said the group, fought “for the sake of her children and their future. . . . She challenged neighbors to get involved, and her neighbors responded dramatically.”

Even the city’s mayor, Joe Erickson, wrote a recommendation for the award on her behalf.

Standing in her kitchen Monday, enveloped in the aromas of the Guatemalan meal she was preparing, Alvarez thought of the future.

“I’m now trying to work with the police, the city, landlords and tenants on Shalimar Street to help fix up some of the apartment buildings,” Alvarez said in Spanish.

She came to the United States from Guatemala City 19 years ago. During that time, she has lived in the same apartment on Shalimar and has watched the neighborhood change while she raised three daughters and a son. She became a U.S. citizen in 1987.

Hers has been a transformation of empowerment.

She has shown how a Spanish-speaking woman on a small income can learn to improve her neighborhood and become a community activist, said Paty Madueno, Alvarez’s friend and volunteer for the Orange County Congregation Community Organization.

“I remember when I first met her at that community meeting four years ago, she was afraid for her life,” Madueno said. “And, now there’s a strong woman who can take care of herself.

“She has lived there for so long,” Madueno said, “she understands that we need to take ownership of our streets and that our children shouldn’t be raised in surroundings like this.”

Alvarez has teamed with neighbors and two churches and successfully launched a neighborhood learning center, called La Escuelita (“little school”), a teen center and a Get Set program for preschool-aged children.

In fact, she is known in her neighborhood as La Senora director de La Escuelita, the woman director of the little school.

“I support the police and I have worked with them,” Alvarez said proudly. “But I don’t work for the police. I’m working with tenants in my neighborhood and we’re interested in trying to better our community.”

She credits the city, St. Andrews Presbyterian Church and St. Joachim Catholic Church for helping residents with programs.

Erickson had nothing but praise for her.

“She’s a wonderful woman who’s done a lot there,” Erickson said.

It was the mayor and police who listened to complaints and pushed to clean up the Shalimar neighborhood by putting in controversial barricades that shut the area off from major thoroughfares.

The effort resulted in an inconvenience for local residents, but also reduced gang activity and car traffic from drug buyers.

“For the past 30 years, Shalimar was the toughest neighborhood in the city,” Erickson said. “I said enough is enough about a year ago when two teens were shot. I said the best way to attack the drug dealings and the gangs on the street was to close it off.”

* SAFER STREETS

Community policing efforts are acknowledged by coalition. B10