Anti-Gang Worker Appeals for Aid to Save Program

The last time Chilton Alphonse’s anti-gang program was in financial trouble, he won the lottery and donated $50,000 to his Community Youth Sports and Arts Foundation.

Two years later, he is praying for another jackpot.

“I’m dying on the vine,� said the 42-year-old Navy veteran, ex-Black Panther and former orchid salesman. “I need to find one of those philanthropists that comes up with a check for a million dollars and says: ‘Here, Chilton--get busy.’ �

Since he opened his doors on Crenshaw Boulevard in 1985, Alphonse has ridden a financial roller coaster, frequently predicting collapse yet always managing to scrape up the cash that annually gives about 500 at-risk youths a place for schooling, counseling and recreation.

Plaques hanging in his office show that he was named the Crenshaw Business District’s “Man of the Year� for 1992 and his program was proclaimed “Organization of the Year� by the Los Angeles Sentinel in 1990. But his blunt, politically charged comments have alienated some elected officials and law enforcement agencies--a fact, he believes, that has hurt his program at budget time.

With the economy in the dumps and government coffers in the red, Community Youth Sports and Arts Foundation is again in a pinch. After taking in more than $500,000 in 1991, Alphonse doubts that his funding will exceed $325,000 this year. He estimates that he is at least $50,000 in debt and, after learning last month that his building is up for sale, fears that he will lose his lease.

He received a temporary reprieve this week when the Amateur Athletic Foundation donated $24,500 to fund a boxing program in a gym behind Alphonse’s alternative high school. But last week, when the County Board of Supervisors awarded a hefty $2.9 million to another gang-prevention program--the fledgling Hope in Youth campaign being spearheaded by Cardinal Roger M. Mahony--Alphonse was irate.

“We’ve been begging for funds and they tell us there’s no funds,� said Alphonse, who recently received $75,000 from the discretionary accounts of Supervisors Kenneth Hahn and Deane Dana. “How the hell did they come up and find $2.9 million for a program with no proven track record? What a joke.�

Alphonse offers a wide range of services to the young men and women who are referred to his program by schools, churches, probation officers and other community organizations. Besides the high school and gym, he provides psychological counseling, parenting classes, a small group home, job referrals and access to the many prominent athletes and entertainers who visit his office.

Of the 500 students enrolled last year at Community Youth Sports and Arts Foundation, Alphonse says, 75 are in college, 250 have returned to family settings and 100 are still involved in the program.

“If he wasn’t here to care for us, nobody would be,� said Tai Tolliver, 16, who is enrolled in the alternative high school. “Instead of being on the street, hanging with the homies . . . we have a place where we can come and focus our minds.�

While Alphonse may be among the most vocal critics of the method in which anti-gang dollars are allocated, he is not alone in having to scramble for what little funds are available. Community Youth Gang Services, the closest thing to a quasi-official gang agency, has seen its funding from the county drop from an initial grant of $1.3 million in 1981 to $900,000 this year.

Steve Valdivia, Community Youth Gang Services executive director, whose budget is $2.7 million, said Alphonse needs to accept that he is competing in difficult economic times and must demonstrate to public officials that his program is cost-effective. “You have to learn to run a very tight ship these days,� Valdivia said.

The seas have turned stormy for Alphonse, in part, because his program was not recommended for funding this year by the city Human Services and Neighborhood Development Division, which had granted him about $60,000 a year over the past three years. Gloria Clark, director of the division, said her staff gave Alphonse’s request for funding a rating of 63 out of a possible 120 points. No requests scoring less than 70 were funded.

Clark said the program scored high marks for experience, but lost points because its fiscal reports were sometimes late and inaccurate. She also said its three-year proposal was incomplete and not specific.

“It doesn’t appear that the agency put much effort into presenting their case,� Clark said. “We’re not unhappy with what Chilton has done, but we’re talking about a competitive process where there are many agencies out there that have a good service and need money.�

Although the City Council ignored Clark’s recommendation and voted to fund Alphonse’s program, Mayor Tom Bradley vetoed the measure in January because it would have taken money from a higher-scoring program. Alphonse, who acknowledges that he left some “minor things� out of his funding proposal, says he is being punished for criticizing Bradley’s leadership.

“Chilton is not the most diplomatic person,� said City Councilman Nate Holden, one of Alphonse’s most ardent supporters. But Holden, who gave Alphonse $10,000 two months ago from a special account, said “the proof of the pudding is in the eating. He’s been doing an effective job over the years and his program should be funded.�

To help trim expenses, several of Alphonse’s dozen paid staff members will have their hours reduced to part-time starting today, and Alphonse will lower his annual salary from $65,000 to $40,000.

Alphonse says he worries most about the youths he serves, about who will care for them if his program is cut back.

“All we want to do is stay in business,� Alphonse said. “Our business is retrieving youth at risk and making them productive citizens.�