CHURCHES CREATING AGENCY FOR POOR.

Byline: Sherry Joe Crosby Daily News Staff Writer

It started with a mother and her child. Homeless and destitute, the pair needed a place to stay. Within days, a group of local churches raised enough money to place them in a hotel.

Although the two are long gone, their plight was never forgotten by the churches that wanted to do more to help Santa Clarita Valley's needy. After several false starts, representatives of five churches are forming a nonprofit agency to do just that.

The Santa Clarita Community Development Corp. wants to provide needy folks with an array of services, from food and clothing to a homeless shelter and low-cost housing.

``There's a deep-seated commitment to help those less fortunate than we may be, and this is one way to do it,'' said Tim Davis, president and member of St. Stephen's Episcopal Church.

The group represents five churches and diverse faiths: St. Stephen's Episcopal, First Presbyterian Church, United Methodist Church of Valencia, Church of Hope and St. Clare Catholic Church.

The agency has incorporated and is seeking nonprofit status. In November, it plans to hold its first fund-raiser, a golf tournament at Vista Valencia Golf Course.

As it seeks nonprofit status, the group is planning its first project, a center for day laborers that would provide job referrals, vocational training and English classes.

Lutheran Social Services, a nonprofit agency in Van Nuys, is advising the group and has submitted a proposal for the day worker center to the city, which is studying the issue.

``We're trying to find out what the city would like to do and become a participant in that,'' said Davis, adding that an agency-sponsored study of 70 to 80 local day laborers and their families shows strong support for such a center.

This week, the city began monitoring day laborers seeking work along Newhall and Canyon Country streets to determine if there's a need for a hiring hall and an anti-loitering ordinance.

The City Council will discuss the findings at its Oct. 1 meeting.

Five years ago, the council rejected a proposal to build a hiring hall and instead called the Immigration and Naturalization Service to conduct a sweep of illegal immigrants.

Church leaders hope the city has changed its attitude since then.

``They need some kind of support, and they're not going to go away,'' said Jerome Nilssen, area director of Lutheran Social Services. ``There's a demand for their services. There wouldn't be day workers if there weren't people there to hire them.''

By helping the immigrants find permanent jobs and learn English, church leaders said they hope to turn them into productive citizens.

``We're just in every instance trying to make them more capable citizens,'' Davis said. ``If we can get them that kind of help, they can get a job.''

Although few needy people seem to live in Santa Clarita with its wide, tree-lined streets and glistening shopping centers, church leaders said there is a need for support services.

``People in Santa Clarita Valley don't like to think of themselves as a city,'' Nilssen said. But the city is ``going to be more and more urban each passing year. You're going to have issues related to housing and employment.''

Civic leaders applauded the group's efforts, but cautioned them to seek community support before launching programs.

``I welcome them,'' said Lupe Lopez, director of the Santa Clarita Valley Service Center, a county social services agency. ``Something has to be done and should be done, but they must have the buy-in of the entire community. There must be a full commitment of the entire community.''

Lopez also cautioned about the possibility of duplicating services.

``If they're going to do something, they should coordinate with the city's youth center, the Santa Clarita Valley Senior Center and our center, so we don't overserve somebody,'' she said.

Group members, some of whom work with the Service Center, are trying to coordinate their resources with existing agencies and seek community input on future projects. Unlike past efforts that failed, the group predicts success this time.

``It's been a long, torturous affair,'' Davis said. ``We had a couple of false starts. We tried to do too much too fast.

``We have gone down to the very basics. We're a proper legal organization and we're trying to get ourselves very broadly based in the community.''