STUDY FINDS U.S. QUAKE AID INADEQUATE DATA SHOW AID UNABLE TO FUND RESTORATION OF HOMES TO PRE-QUAKE LEVEL.

Byline: Kermit Pattison Daily News Staff Writer

Two years after the Northridge Earthquake damaged thousands of homes in Ventura County and Santa Clarita, government emergency relief has failed to provide enough money to allow many quake victims to restore their homes, according to a team of researchers.

A New Mexico State University team found many homeowners in Simi Valley, Santa Clarita, Fillmore and Piru did not get enough disaster assistance to restore their homes to their pre-quake condition, forcing local agencies and charities to step in to fill the gap.

"In most cases, the earthquake assistance didn't put people back on the same economic situation they were in before the earthquake," said Lois Stanford, an associate professor of anthropology at New Mexico State University and co-author of the study. "Many people had to come up with their own money and their own resources in order to get their lives back in order."

Some local officials echoed the conclusions of the study.

"There's no question about it," said Ken Pulskamp, Santa Clarita assistant city manager. "People have made use of FEMA, insurance, loans and every possible source and they're still coming up with not enough money. Many residents are still living in damaged homes. Some still haven't been able to get back into their homes."

The Federal Emergency Management Agency said it has has doled out $1.4 billion in assistance to victims of the Jan. 17, 1994, quake for home repairs, mortgage and rental assistance. The agency has received 681,000 claims for earthquake relief - making it the largest disaster in the agency's history.

"Federal assistance is designed to get people back on their feet," said

Vallee Bunting, a spokeswoman for the FEMA Northridge Earthquake recovery office in Pasadena. "It is not designed to restore people fully to the lives they had before the disaster. There may be instances where people may not have received all the disaster assistance they have hoped for."

"The intent of the program is to provide enough assistance so people will at least be able to move forward with their lives again," Bunting said. ''FEMA has to walk a fine line between the amount of assistance we can provide but also be good stewards of taxpayer dollars."

Meanwhile, repairs continue two years after the 6.7-magnitude quake rocked Southern California.

In Simi Valley, for example, the city had 11,375 damaged buildings, but has issued just 3,800 permits for earthquake repairs, said city building official Gaddis Farmer.

"I'm very positive and optimistic about it," Farmer said. "The recovery is going to be ongoing, but people are moving on and doing very well."

The New Mexico State University researchers began the study in the fall of 1994 to examine communities - Simi Valley, Fillmore, Piru and Santa Clarita - outside Los Angeles and less subject to media attention.

Funded by $91,000 in grants from the National Science Foundation, the study compares quake response among different income levels and racial groups. It also examines strategies to help low- and mid-income people recover from disasters, Stanford said.

The study examined newspaper articles in the two years following the quake. Researchers also collected data on federal aid by ZIP code and will conduct more than 60 interviews with residents and officials by the time they issue a final report this summer, Stanford said.

Stanford could not provide statistical information to back up the tentative conclusions, saying researchers still have not processed all the data. But she said dozens of interviews with residents, service groups and officials bore out the conclusions.

Although the final report will not be issued until this summer, researchers said preliminary analysis shows that many residents - especially mid- and low-income people - have failed to get enough federal or state aid to cover their damages. The problem is especially severe in low-income neighborhoods where many residents lack private insurance, Stanford said.

As a result, Stanford said, local charitable groups like churches, service clubs and Habitat for Humanity have provided a crucial safety net to help many people finish their repairs.

"Most people got enough money to cover materials," she said. "But a lot of people had to go to credit sources for labor. In Fillmore and Piru, many of those credit sources are not available."

In Fillmore, for example, dozens of homes have been repaired or rebuilt by volunteers from Habitat for Humanity, the Mennonites and the Christian Reform Church.

"A lot of people wouldn't be in their homes if it wasn't for these volunteer groups," said the Rev. Norm Supancheck of St. Francis of Assisi Church in Fillmore, who helped coordinate the relief efforts. "They would have been among the homeless. A lot of people couldn't afford it."

Stanford stopped short of assigning blame for the problems. She said the final report would outline strategies for local groups to augment government relief efforts, especially since it appears unlikely the federal government will be giving any more aid in the current climate of fiscal austerity.

Marty Robinson, Ventura County deputy chief administrative officer, defended the federal assistance in regional development and earthquake recovery programs.

"I think there was a genuine effort of the federal agencies to try to help us," she said. "Whether we got enough money is another question. But I think there was some genuine effort on the part of those agencies to try to be receptive."

For example, Robinson said federal aid from the Department of Housing and Urban Development and FEMA would help revitalize Piru with business assistance programs, storm drains and housing funds.

"Piru may not only be restored, but improved," she said.