Down, by the sea: near the elite Long Beach residences of Naples and Belmont Shore are crowded apartments teeming with poor immigrants.

IN the densely populated neighborhoods west of downtown Long Beach, there's not much graffiti, the streets and lawns aren't trash-strewn, and homes don't appear to be in disrepair.

But beneath the surface of what could pass for almost any working-class neighborhood is one of the most impoverished communities of Los Angeles County, according to data compiled by the Business Journal.

Within a few miles of the $650,000-plus homes in the city's Naples neighborhood, per capita income in this densely populated community--what is the 90813 ZIP code--runs just $7,567, according to Census data.

Surrounded by pockets of wealth, nearly half of the 63,000 residents live below the poverty line. (The federal poverty rate for a family of four is $18,400.)

It's a familiar story. Apartments are overcrowded with families from Mexico, Central and South America, and Cambodia, who began immigrating in large numbers in the late 1970s. Most have limited education and work minimum wage service jobs.

"These are mostly people with limited ability to move up the economic ladder," said Ray O. Worden, the city's workforce development manager.

Worden and other city officials say the district's numbers are skewed because many undocumented families in the area don't report income and were unrepresented in the census.

As a result, said Dennis J. Thys, neighborhood services bureau manager for the city of Long Beach, the community's median household income of $20,015 doesn't reflect actual levels. Further skewing the numbers, he adds, is that the neighborhood is home to several low-income housing developments, consisting mostly of older residents.

"I don't want to sugarcoat it, this neighborhood has its challenges," he said, "but it's not the worst in the county."

Challenging hurdles

A portion of 90813, along the L.A. River south of Anaheim Street, has long been troubled. The city's first real estate developer, William Willmore, chose the area as the location of his original Willmore City subdivision in 1882, only to fail when buyers didn't materialize for the first dozen homes.

Long Beach incorporated six years later, radiating out from the original Willmore neighborhood. That area, largely within the 90813 ZIP code, is home to some of the city's oldest homes.

But history and the chronic Southern California housing shortage are starting to catch up, and property values have begun to rise. That has proven beneficial for some homeowners south of Anaheim Street but added pressure to the poorer community already crowding into a smaller and smaller area.

As of January, the median resale value of a home in the 90813 ZIP code was $310,000, 128 percent higher than January 1999, according to Fiserv CSW Inc., a home-price tracking firm.

"You can't touch a bungalow in this neighborhood anymore for under $400,000," said Niki Tennant, chief of staff to Councilwoman Bonnie Lowenthal, whose 1st District includes much of 90813.

"This is one of the last areas close to the water that's relatively affordable," added Thys. "Where else can you go in California where you buy this close to the beach? There's not many."

But the gains seen in the southern part of the community--especially the re-energized downtown 90802 ZIP code where million dollar condos are going up along the coast--haven't been shared by the northern neighborhoods.

The blocks above 14th Street continue to be marred by poverty. Surrounding Washington Middle School, at 14th Street and Pacific Avenue, median household income drops to $19,800 and family size increases to 4.1 people. Citywide, the median family of 2.77 has an annual income of $37,270 annually.

The tightly packed neighborhoods surrounding Washington Middle School have been flashpoints for Latino, Asian and African American gangs. (The district is 61 percent Latino, 16 percent Asian, 13 percent African American and 6 percent white.)

Gritty corridor

Greg Schirmer, public information officer for the Long Beach Police Department, said the area is far from the worst in terms of crime. But he acknowledged there were 21 homicides in the community last year, nearly half the city's total of 49.

Last year, the department created a Gang and Violent Crime Division to better address the problem, and created a special patrol to conduct regular stings along Anaheim Street--a gritty corridor plagued by prostitution and drug dealing.

To ease tensions on the economic side, the city is changing the way it distributes federal grants it receives from the Department of Housing and Urban Development.

Officials have picked three spots, including the Washington Middle School neighborhood, and will sink all their resources into building affordable housing and more parks in them. The hope is that focused attention will ripple through the community and spur private investment.

The effort has had some impact. Aided by redevelopment dollars, a Superior Super Warehouse grocery opened three months ago at the corner of Ninth Street and Long Beach Boulevard, bringing with it 200 new jobs.

Behind the supermarket, a massive redevelopment project called the American Marketplace is under consideration. It could add several hundred market-rate and low-income rental and for-sale housing units and some retail. As proposed, the project would stretch up Long Beach Boulevard to the corner of Anaheim Street, where there is a Blue Line metro stop.

"There are real opportunities here," said David Simpson, a project manager with the city's redevelopment agency, which for the first time last year collected money. The agency can issue up to $30 million in bonds based on those revenue streams, Simpson said.

Young Kim, owner of Discoteca--La Colonial Video on Anaheim Street, said the changes are noticeable. In his 19 years at the location, the area has cleaned up from a seedy haunt of prostitutes and drugs dealers.

Pulling out photos of his shop after it was ransacked during the 1992 riots, he told stories about shootings that took place in a hotel above his shop and the constant burglaries.

That hotel and another like it across the street were shut down by the city several years ago, and Long Beach has offered low-interest loans and grants of $2,000 to Young and other Anaheim Street business owners to fix up their storefronts. The problem hotels have since been replaced with apartments.

"They really try to clean this place up," he said. "It's good what the city has done."

Yet even with the addition of a boutique clothing store and a beautician to a retail mix that includes a dozen liquor stores and bars, Kim said the physical improvements haven't been felt at the cash register.

"People not really have money to spend here," he said. "Very poor. Business still slow."

Highest Poverty Rate
Nearly half of residents in 90813 were below poverty line
($18,400 for a family of four).

                                                Percent Below
Community               ZIP Code   Population    Poverty Line

Downtown L.A.
 /Artist District        90013         9,504         58.1%
Downtown L.A.
 /Industrial District    90021         2,780         56.4
Downtown L.A.
 /Central City West      90017        20,699         50.5
Vernon                   90058         3,495         47.6
Long Beach               90813        62,941         45.6
Downtown L.A.
 /Jewelry Market,
 Fashion Market          90014         3,690         42.3
Downtown L.A.
 /South Park,
 Santee Alley            90015        15,367         41.9
Los Angeles/Watts        90059        37,956         41.8
Los Angeles/
 University Park         90007        44,689         41.0
Los Angeles/
 South Central           90003        59,003         40.3

Source: U.S. Census Bureau--Census 2000