East Los Angeles Community Union

An East Los Angeles nonprofit organization known as a prolific low-income housing developer with political ties to high-ranking Latino lawmakers has launched an aggressive expansion into the fast-growing Inland Empire. The East Los Angeles Community Union, an economic development corporation that includes profit-making subsidiaries, already has opened three senior housing projects in San Bernardino and Riverside counties and is planning to build four more in the near future.

An East Los Angeles nonprofit organization known as a prolific low-income housing developer with political ties to high-ranking Latino lawmakers has launched an aggressive expansion into the fast-growing Inland Empire. The East Los Angeles Community Union, an economic development corporation that includes profit-making subsidiaries, already has opened three senior housing projects in San Bernardino and Riverside counties and is planning to build four more in the near future.

RTC Awards Rich Contract to TELACU, Others: The East Los Angeles Community Union and three Southern California companies are part of a consortium of firms that has won one of the largest single contracts ever awarded by the federal agency that is disposing of failed thrift assets. The Resolution Trust Corp. will pay the joint venture, known as Texas Data Control, $39.7 million over the next three years to service loans valued at $7.

A scholarship check doesn't guarantee a diploma. The East Los Angeles Community Union Scholarship, which has given money to more than 3,000 Latino students in the last 18 years, learned the hard way. "Even though a lot of our young men and women had the financial resources, they were still going the first and second year in college and then they were dropping out," said David Lizarraga, president of the organization.

Southern California Edison has awarded $100,000 to the East Los Angeles Community Union Education Foundation, which provides college scholarships, advises students in their first year and plans to develop a mentor program to increase the number of Latino college students. The foundation was established in 1991, but it had been awarding college scholarships since 1983.

An Irvine company and the East Los Angeles Community Union are part of a consortium that has won one of the largest single contracts awarded by the federal agency that is disposing of failed thrift assets. The Resolution Trust Corp. will pay the joint venture known as Texas Data Control $39.7 million over the next three years to service loans valued at $7.5 billion from failed thrifts in Texas, Louisiana and Mississippi. The contract includes two optional one-year extensions.

There's already a waiting list for TELACU Gardens, a new affordable-housing project for disabled adults. The nonprofit East Los Angeles Community Union known by the acronym TELACU built the 24-unit project at 7131 Gage Ave. through a $2-million grant from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. The city, which provided the land, contributed an additional $142,000 for balconies, sidewalks and other amenities.

Workers have started grading five acres to make way for a 106-unit townhouse development by the East Los Angeles Community Union (TELACU). City View Terrace, a $17.5-million development at 3711 Baldwin Ave., should be completed by about July and ready for occupancy by year's end, said Rick Martinez, TELACU vice president for affordable housing.

The East Los Angeles Community Union expects to finish the first phase of City View Terrace, its 106-unit townhouse development at the former site of City View Hospital in Lincoln Heights, by early March. With help from the Century Freeway Housing Program, the development will offer qualified first-time homeowners subsidized home loans. The Century Freeway Project will fund a "silent second" mortgage of up to $50,000, said TELACU President David C. Lizarraga.

The East Los Angeles Community Union has opened an office to help businesses hurt by the Northridge earthquake that did not receive federal disaster loans. Under a pilot project sponsored by the U .S. Department of Commerce, TELACU will administer loans of $25,000 to $750,000 for equipment, working capital and repair of commercial property damaged in the Jan. 17, 1994, earthquake.

In 1968, Esteban Torres, a onetime worker at the Chrysler auto assembly plant in Commerce, joined with United Auto Workers President Walter Reuther and the federal government to form an organization dedicated to building the economy of East Los Angeles. Torres, who rose from the factory floor to UAW leadership and eventually a seat in Congress, believed that East L.A. was "a colony dependent on outside forces"--Los Angeles' Anglo power structure, which he viewed as disdaining East L.A.'

Los Angeles Councilman Richard Alatorre, whose personal finances and public actions are under federal investigation, offered his first explanation Tuesday of thousands of dollars in cash he used to pay private expenses in recent years. Returning to the witness stand in a contentious child custody case, the Eastside lawmaker told Superior Court Judge Henry W. Shatford that he had accumulated "lots of cash" from per diem payments he saved during his days in the Legislature.

Overriding critics, the South Gate City Council has agreed to lend $7 million to a controversial East Los Angeles company--a loan that may never have to be repaid. The council gave final approval to the redevelopment loan Tuesday night on a 3-2 vote, clearing the way for the sale of bonds for a 74-unit senior citizens housing project, which will be built by a corporate arm of the East Los Angeles Community Union, better known as TELACU.

A firm with substantial government business and a controversial history paid $12,000 for a tile roof for Los Angeles City Councilman Richard Alatorre, raising new questions of possible illegalities involving the lawmaker's Eagle Rock home. The roof was financed by the East Los Angeles Community Union, known as TELACU, just weeks after Alatorre helped one of the firm's partnerships obtain a crucial $2-million city loan for a shopping center project, a Times investigation has found.

As officials gathered Thursday for a groundbreaking ceremony for the 75-unit Las Flores senior housing project, the years-long controversy that has followed the project also appears resolved.

Created with the noble goal of helping disadvantaged youngsters, two charities championed by Los Angeles City Councilman Richard Alatorre are being investigated by transit authorities for steering money to an event-planning firm founded by his wife.

The Pasadena-based firm of Valencia, Maldonado & Echeveste has been awarded the U.S. Department of Transportation's Minority Business Award for its work in promoting the Metro Blue Line. The two-year-old public relations and marketing firm developed a safety program for children who live along the Blue Line route in central Los Angeles, including 80,000 place mats with a board game and a list of do's-and-don'ts, which were distributed by local fast-food restaurants.

The TELACU Education Foundation is accepting applications for its 1995-96 scholarship program, which will award 250 scholarships ranging from $500 to $10,000. To be eligible, students must be permanent residents of Los Angeles, Montebello, Commerce, Bell Gardens or Monterey Park. They must demonstrate financial need, have a grade-point average of at least 2.5 and plan to attend a local participating college or university on a full-time basis.

With little fanfare or publicity, a controversial East Los Angeles economic development firm is venturing into the San Fernando Valley with the construction of a 75-unit senior housing project in Pacoima. The low-income project on Mercer Street will sit on what is now a weed-covered lot strewn with discarded furniture and soiled mattresses. Graffiti covers nearby brick walls.

It began with a sewing machine, thread, glue and leather scraps in a musty two-door garage for Antonio and Yolanda Mascorro. After moving to Monterey Park from Guadalajara, Mexico, in 1964, Mascorro earned money to make ends meet by making wallets with his wife in their garage. He bought leather scraps at a tannery, cut the pieces with a rented machine, then stitched and glued them into tri-fold wallets.